In 2023, the Baìo di Sampeyre was held: a thousand-year-old festival that takes place every five years in the Varaita valley with a parade of colors and sounds that animates the villages for three days. Silvia Pesce, a freelance videomaker and young director together with the linguist Eugenio Goria decided to film it with the urgency of collecting its memory. Later, by staying in contact with the inhabitants and listening to their stories, the two understood that there was the potential to make a real film.
The interviews collected are almost all in the characteristic dialect of the valley, a variety of Occitan that the inhabitants of Sampeyre call “speaking in our own way” to best convey the identity of the territory.
The film was shot mostly in the hamlet of Rore, where on February 3, one year after filming, a screening was held to provide the first unpublished images and present the future of the project: a fundraiser for the post-production of the film.
The protagonist of the story will be the sense of community that explodes in the year of Baìo, which tells us the utopia of a life in harmony with one’s own territory and with others. Silvia Pesce is now trying to conclude her second feature film through a crowdfunding campaign: to be able to raise the necessary funds to be able to entrust some work to other professionals, such as the original music by Gabriele Ferrero, the most famous violinist of the Occitan valleys of Italy, and the illustrations by Marco Bailone who describes mountain culture well in his works, in addition to completing the editing.
The crowdfunding campaign is on the Produzioni dal Basso website with the film title “La Buato” which means the box, a magic box capable of containing the entire party.
You can contribute to the project by making a donation on the grassroots productions site or by participating in one of the organized summer meetings.
