CREW
Written and Directed by Michelangelo Frammartino
Director of Photography Andrea Locatelli
Line Producer Francesca Zanza
Production Manager Marco Serrecchia
Editing Benni Atria, Maurizio Grillo
Sound Paolo Benvenutti, Simone Paolo Olivero
Sound Design Daniel Iribarren in collaboration with Benni Atria
Production Design Matthew Broussard
Costume Design Gabriella Maiolo
Sound Mix Ansgar Frerich/ DIE BASIS Berlin
Costume Design Gabriella Maiolo
Producers Marta Donzelli, Gregorio Paonessa, Susanne Marian, Philippe Bober, Gabriella Manfré, Elda Guidinetti, Andres Pfaeffli
A Co-Production of Vivo Film, Essential Filmproduktion, Invisibile Film, Ventura Film
Supported by Ministero per i Beni e per le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale Cinema, TorinoFilmLab 2008, Eurimages, Medienboard Berlin-Brandeburg, Fondazione Calabria Film Commission - Regione Calabria
In collaboration with ZDF / Arte, Cinecittà Luce, RTSI
CAST
The Shepherd Giuseppe Fuda
Charcoal Maker Bruno Timpano
Charcoal Maker Nazareno Timpano
Italy/Germany/Switzerland 2010 88 min
'
What a pleasure to welcome a true original. Here's a wonderful film about life, the universe and everything. It's captivating, touching, wryly humourous, mysterious, intriguing and uplifting...this beguiling and unique piece of cinema.'
Trevor Johnston, Time Out
★★★★★
'You'd have to pretend not to like this film. It is overpoweringly lovable. It is now touring the globe charming the pantaloons off every audience in arthouses and beyond.'
Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times
★★★★★
'Sublime'
Wendy Ide, The Times
★★★★
'Masterful…a gem of art cinema...this beautiful movie…superbly filmed…deeply affecting. Every shot framed and composed with outstanding judgement.'
Peter Bradshaw The Guardian
★★★★
'Intriguing…outstanding…it’s all rather wonderful…a balm to the spirit'
Derek Malcolm, The Evening Standard
FILM OF THE WEEK
'An elegiac and thought-provoking film…an extraordinary achievement…It is an essay, a cinematic poem, a spiritual exploration of time and space, and it's designed to make us think and feel about the world around us and our place in it.'
Philip French The Observer
★★★★★
'The film is an extraordinary achievement – beautiful, moving, mysterious, and, at times, extremely funny. In its self-effacing way, it’s nothing short of a miracle. One of those rare works that breaks all the rules of about what cinema “should” be, in order to demonstrate what it “can” be…the freshest and deepest film I’ve encountered in a while…the revelation of Cannes 2010.'
Jonathan Romney The Independent on Sunday
★★★★
Spellbinding…arthouse cinema at its most poetic.'
Allan Hunter The Daily Express
★★★★
'A beautiful little meditation on an ancient way of life'
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, Metro
'We've never seen another film quite like it.'
Tom Charity Lovefilm
★★★★
'It is the least pretentious and most joyous celebration of nature. It's hard to convey the quiet beauty and strange wit of Frammartino's portrait of the changing seasons. Just watch, and wonder.'
Anthony Quinn, The Independent
'A wonderful film that I am sure you - all of you - will love.'Ryan Gilbey,
The New Statesman
"NOTHING PREPARED ME FOR THE BRILLIANCE OF LE QUATTRO VOLTE...
a film at once poetic, beautiful, comic, hugely complex and sublimely simple"
Jonathan Romney,
Sight and Sound'Beguiling…slow-burning charm….supremely stylish.'
Edward Lawrenson, The Big Issue
‘’This delightful film has won hearts and minds everywhere it has been shown.'
Peter Bradshaw, NINE OF THE BEST FILMS for 2011, The Guardian
‘Few films feel as completely achieved as this adroitly staged meditation on life cycles in rural Italy.’
Nick James, Sight and Sound
‘The films that move and interest me, at least outside the documentary format, re increasingly ones that channel the otherworldly quality of the cinematic experience. This was one.’
Lee Marshall, Sight and Sound
‘Probably the most accomplished piece of cinema you’ll see this year…WITTY, WONDROUS AND PROFOUND’
Wendy Ide, The Times
'Quite simply the strangest - and one of the most entertaining - films you will see at this year's London Film Festival'
Nick Roddick, The Evening Standard
“Exquisite images…are contained within a larger poetic scheme …much humour; herds of goats provide laughs aplenty, and one virtuoso long take boasts a brilliant, comic performance from a dog. Very special.”
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
‘Michelangelo Frammartino's Le quattro volte, a wordless, but hardly silent, evocation of the Great Chain of Being (men, goats, trees) as manifest in rural Calabria, that was the shining light of the Directors' Fortnight...’
Jim Hoberman, Village Voice
'An almost wordless film of striking beauty and originality, Le Quattro Volte announces the confident arrival of the second Michelangelo of Italian cinema.'
Lee Marshall, Screen International
'The best film I've ever seen about goats. In short, a maaaa-sterpiece.’
Jonathan Romney, The Independent
“Its view of nature is among the most profound, expansive and unsettling I have ever encountered on film.”
A.O.Scott, The New York Times