LINDA PAPPAGALLO
Transhumant Noise/ Frastuono Transumante
8 minute experimental documentary
Transhumance is a ritual of negotiations and rhythmic exchanges, it is never a simple 'wandering', as a bucolic form of “orientalism” might have us imagine. The shepherd plays a social and ecosystemic role, while keeping alive the idea that access to land is crucial for all. Crossing boundaries is necessary, a need, a right, in order to produce food. Pastoralists are increasingly annihilated by the logic of extractivism including "green" energy-generated land grabs. Transhumant noise, invites us on a journey that crosses the romanticized sonic barrier. What does it mean to 'do transhumance' in a post-climate change, capitalist, and dystopian reality? This aural tale, at times too noisy, recounts the moment when Mauro, a young shepherd from Ulassai, takes his flock of 100 goats (and 100 bells) into another world "Il Parco Eolico". These windmill farms extend over 3,000 hectares on the plateau between Ulassai and Perdasdefogu. It is on this high plateau, now parched and infernal, that Mauro and his father endure with a sheepfold in concession.
Has it rained fi bledi?
(work in progress with Hamdi Dallali)
Douiret, an Amazigh village in southern Tunisia, is largely defined by “absence”. Two relatives embark on a journey to explore its meaning. While one wants to leave for Tunis and eventually Italy, the other wants to return to the village, Douiret. The flock of sheep they inherit becomes their cure and answer, the pain and curse. This audio-visual documentary chronicles peasant liminalities between the rural and the urban, where the question of land remains an important element. This documentary speaks about food sovereignty, identity politics, and settler colonialism. We learn how livestock-keeping and olive trees have much to teach about the politics of boundary -making in the Mediterranean, whether real and material or intangible and conceptual.
