21st SALENTO INTL FILM FESTIVAL
DOCUMENTARYFLAVIO PAOLUCCI
FROM GUELMIN TO BIASCA
Country: Swtzerland Year: 2024 Duration: 64 min. Language: Italian Subtitles: English
The documentary “Flavio Paolucci: FROM GUELMIM TO BIASCA” directed by Villi Hermann, explores the life and art of Flavio Paolucci, a Swiss artist known for his sculptures and paintings that mix reality and fantasy. The narrative follows Paolucci as he works on a mural in his studio in Biasca, a project initially intended for a German museum but which was changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The artist decided to create and then destroy the mural in his studio, making the work accessible only to viewers of the film, a gesture that highlights the ephemeral nature of art.
The documentary interweaves moments from the present with significant memories from the artist’s past, such as his youthful trip to Morocco in 1964 and his time in Paris, highlighting how these experiences influenced his artistic journey. Through these stories, the film not only documents the creation of a work of art, but also how Paolucci’s art evolved in the context of a life lived among different cultures and landscapes.
Director
Villi Hermann
Villi Hermann, born in 1941, studied figurative arts in Lucerne, Paris and Krefeld. He subsequently attended courses at the London Film School, where he obtained his diploma in 1969. He returned to Switzerland and created various cultural services for the Swiss Television SRF and TSI. Since 1976 he has worked with the Filmkollektiv in Zurich and in 1981 he founded Imago Film SA in Lugano. In 2011 he received the Cinema Ticino Award at the Locarno Film Festival and in 2021 the Solothurn Days dedicated the first complete retrospective to him as a filmmaker and producer. He lives in Malcantone.
Director’s Note
Flavio Paolucci is not a person who talks much and does not expose himself too much to the art market. He is a man from the valley, taciturn, he knows how to listen to his neighbors, the people who work, he doesn’t attend exhibition vernissages. He will visit his colleagues’ exhibitions later, in silence, without haste. Paolucci is a man of nature, he still walks every day in the woods near his atelier in Biasca. In his paintings you always find nature, it is not a trend of recent years revised in globalized art, for Paolucci nature lives in him and with him and is transformed into art for all of us. He loves the silence of his atelier and the silence of the nearby forest. For all this I made a film with the Swiss Italian painter in “exile”.
Cast
& Credits
Director: VILLI HERMANN SCREENPLAY: VILLI HERMANN, EVE MARTIN FOTOGRAPHY: ALBERTO MERONI SOUND: MARCO VIALE MUSIC: ZENO GABAGLIO CAST: FLAVIO PAOLUCCI, ALICE PAULI,
Images
Trailer
