REVIEWS
"Yuri Ancarani manages to build frames and angles that are quite unusual in cinema, meant to turn the operation into an even bigger spectacle. Aesthetically and geographically speaking,
Il Capo is a monumental work
". (Bruno Carmelo, NISIMAZINE)

"Un sorprendente corto di 15 minuti sospeso nel tempo e per certi versi molto vicino all’essenza dei documentari industriali realizzati da Ermanno Olmi". (Michele Faggi, INDIE-EYE)

"A choreographed, spooky portrait of a marble quarry, this flm features the best use of a monolith and upward pan since Kubrik's 2001. Man, machines, nature come together in an elemental masterpiece”. (True/False Film Festival, Columbia)

"A surprisingly poetic documentary short shot in an Italian marble quarry, Il Capo finds the strangeness in the spinning wheels and giraffe-like necks of heavy machinery, and the grace in the weathered face and nonverbal gestures of the man directing the machines. The film ends with sweeping shots of the mountains that the surround the noisy quarry site, perhaps a testament to the power of the work being done there, perhaps as an expression of awe at all that we cannot move". (Victoria Large, NOTCOMING)

"The laborious construction of a sensitive mutual trust has allowed the Italian artist Yuri Ancarani to film the work of the quarrymen from Carrara marble Apennines. The landscape and the shape of the mountain is transformed before our eyes, the result of a harmonious choreography between the mysterious coded gestures and movements of the quarry of heavy machinery at his command, assault rock". (David Hudson, MUBI)

"At the heart of this is a bare-chested man standing in the mist, directing labourers without a word. The « Man » is stood there, unmoving, as massive slabs of marble are being cut by gigantic machines, an incarnation of the « Essence of Man » ; the whole shot looks like a perfume advert, the man an orchestra conductor guiding a ballet of machines. A sense of majestic beauty is conferred onto the man via his sign language, through the machines strength and noises, through the slabs of marble". (Clotilde, MYDYLARAMA)

"Dans une carrière de marbre en Italie, “il capo” – le chef, en italien – dirige les machines et les hommes, uniquement par le geste. Yuri Ancarani en fait le chef d’un orchestre démesuré, où les instruments sont des pelleteuses “godzillesques”, les musiciens des solistes experts du joystick et la partition une symphonie de chutes de blocs de marbre de plusieurs tonnes chacun. Le réalisateur sait trouver et capter toute la grâce et l’harmonie de cet univers masculin, mécanisé et violent. “Il capo”, torse nu et en short, la peau burinée par les réverbérations du soleil, est sans le savoir un chef d’orchestre des plus inattendus. Tout son physique exprime la dureté du travail manuel – visage marqué, regard noir et concentré – ses dangers aussi : un gros plan sur l’une de ses mains révèle l’absence de deux doigts, certainement coupés accidentellement par ce marbre si inoffensif. Et pourtant, ce maestro sans baguette ni pupitre, au physique si rustre, est à l’origine d’une chorégraphie élégante et millimétrée.
Ancarani travaille sa matière cinématographique de la même façon que le marbre est arraché sans ménagements à la montagne: c’est brut et sans fioritures. Ni musique, ni mouvements de caméra ne viennent perturber des plans fixes au cadre savamment travaillé, dans lesquels se déroule cette symphonie mécanique. Ces blocs de marbre blanc, hauts comme le monolithe noir du 2001 de Kubrick, sont une matière noble en devenir, destinée à garnir les plus beaux palaces, là où s’écoute une musique raffinée. Leurs formes parallélépipédiques parfaites en font l’objet fictionnel du film: leur présence est à la fois inquiétante et séduisante, captant la lumière pour mieux combler l’homme de beauté. Tout comme les pré-humains de Kubrick, “il capo” vit la même fascination face au monolithe, même si l’interprétation diffère chez Ancarani : par un simple gros plan sur un crucifix – noyé dans le torse velu du chef –, il place son personnage mutique sur un piédestal et lui offre, dans un unique et ultime travelling aérien final, une dimension cosmique. Cet homme semble avoir reçu un don de Dieu, et du haut de sa montagne, il s’en rapproche en effleurant le ciel de sa main mutilée".
(Fabrice Marquat, BREF MAGAZINE)
PRESS KIT
Yuri Ancarani
Il Capo, 2010
35mm, 15'

"In fondo si è ancora ammaliati dal fascino di voler credere in qualche rifondazione del reale seppur incapaci ancora di scontare nel mito e nel meraviglioso? L’ascesa ad un sublime e la tensione emotiva che questo comporta, si pongono quali garanzie per un ultimo spasmo creativo, verificato nelle pieghe meno scandagliate della realtà materica che Yuri Ancarani plasma con le sue mani da visionario". (Andrea Bruciati)

The idea of the documentary arises from watching quarrymen at work, from their extraordinary way of communicate in a non.conventional language of gestures and signs, a code used by The Chief to overcome the ambient blast. The work is realised in the unusual and enchanting backdrop of the Alpi Apuane, with the quarry blinding–white and trackless cleft, a dusty lunar landscape almost impraticable. A place so inaccessible to make the endless challenge to the mountain more heroic.

The work has the contributions of the director of photography Ugo Carlevaro, Mirco Mencacci for the sound desgin (in the film he used Spherical Sound, a recordinf system projected by his own) and the photographer of architecture Pietro Savorelli.

The film is produced by N.O. Gallery (Milan), Gemeg (Carrara), and realised with the collaboration of Deneb Media.

SYNOPSIS
Monte Bettogli, Carrara: in the marble quarries men and machines dig the mountain.
"Il Capo" (The Chief) manages, coordinates and guides quarrymen and heavy-duty machines using a language consisting solely of gestures and signs. Conducting his dangerous and sublime orchestra against the backdrop of the sheerslopes and peaks of the Apuane Alps, the Chief works in total noise, which create a paradoxical silence.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

In a lot of documentaries about the marble quarries, the quarrymen are shown as Neorealistic archetypes, tough guys made of sweat and swear words. I, on the other hand, admire their practical intelligence: it is a form of elegance that can teach us a lot, and which my head quarryman possesses: he is a man who has style in his gestures and manners. In such a tough and dangerous environment, I wanted to highlight an aspect of delicacy.

BIOGRAPHY
Yuri Ancarani, Ravenna 1972.
Visual artist, director and lecturer in Video Art at the NABA - Nuova Accademia Belle Arti (Milan).
His works have been shown at national and international museums and exhibitions, such as:
MAXXI, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo (Rome, Italy), R. Solomon Guggenheim Museum (New York, USA), Cinema Eye Honors, Museum of Moving Image (New York, USA), Prague Biennal 5 (Prague, Poland), XIV Biennale Internazionale di Scultura (Carrara, Italy), 14 Media Art Biennale Wro (Wroklav, Poland), ZERO...gallery (Milan, Italy), Fair: Berlin (Berlin, Germany), T.I.C.A. Tirana Institute of Contemporary Art (Tirana, Albany), La Friche Marseille (France), Videoart Yearbook 09.

And at several film festivals:
67th and 68th Venice Film Festival (Venice, Italy), Hot Docs, Canadian International Documentary Festival (Toronto, Canada), Cinema Eye Honors (Museum of Moving Image, New York), IFFR International Film Festival Rotterdam (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), DocuWest Documentary Film Festival (Colorado, USA), 23rd IDFA International Documentary Film Festival (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), SXSW (Houston, Texas), 4th Ann Arbor Film Festival (Michigan, USA) Full Frame Documentary Festival (Dhuram, USA), True/False Film Festival (Columbia, Missouri), Cinéma du Réel (Centre Pompidou, Paris, France).

CONTACT
info@yuriancarani.com

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