Title:  THE WATER FAIRYTALE - THE BLUE KISS

Genre: Feature film, fairy tale dur. 75'

Casting: Lorenzo d'Agata, Remo Girone, Sebastiano, Somma , Claudio Lippi

Directed: Pino Tordiglione

Novelist: Pino Tordiglione, Fausto Baldassarre

Screenplay: Alberto Rondalli, Pino Tordiglione, Fortunato Campanile

Director of photography: Claudio Collepiccolo

Composer: Giovanni Lodigiani

 

 

The Blue Kissis a story that’s told slowly, around the fireplace. A story with few characters.

 

“Water is essential to all life on earth.”

“You can survive without food, but not without water.”

Theseare concepts so basic that we take them as platitudes, accept them as givens. In reality they hide a world in division.

 

The Blue Kiss a film that restores respect for water as a fundamentally important good, and searches out some of its many intrinsic meanings. In all societies, water has conveyed messages of Peace, Freedom and Union, while demanding in exchange a spirit of brotherhood and standards of behaviour. To waste it, to pollute it, is a loss, while to control it leads toinequality and struggle. The Blue Kiss is cinema that searches out the primeval values of water as a spiritual essence of life, andas a feminine accompaniment to society – concepts shared in traditions around the world. Water is not simply a commodity, although, certainly in the developed world, we treat it this way.Blue Kiss returns water to its ancient role as the ‘anima mundi’: the Soul of the World.

 

Synopsis

Francescois 11 years old, lively and curious. On the surface things seem simple and positive: he lives alone with his mother, and enjoys school. But Francesco feels out of step with others, because of the still recent separation between his mother and father. His father’s increasingabsence confronts him with a personal struggle, and his dream is to see the family reunited and happy. The only one who really seems to know his situation is his grandfather, Nonno Angelo.

Accompanying Angelo is a greater, magical character, unknown to Francesco: a silent and mysterious presence, who can bring  dreams to life. Over the school break, Nonno Angelo leads Francesco on a voyage of discovery, learning and awareness, in the world of water – this ‘invisible’ personage. 

Nonno Angelo believes in the different essences of water. With him, Francesco learns that water means much more than simply turning on the tap, to satisfy the moment’s needs. Together they step back into times not long ago, when water was part of a life in closer harmony with the natural world, much different than in our current technical-industrial  contexts. Francesco develops understandings of the profound meanings of water for life. He takes water itself as his new friend, and hand in hand they embark on the voyage towards his dream.

 

The characters

Francesco’s mother, Giulia, tends to him closely. She suffers too from the family separation, although it seems to be her that has initiated the changes. It could also be her that resolves the situation. Giulia is played by Morgana Forcellahttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm1304859/.

Francesco’s father, an engineer, is director of the local water company, played by Sebastiano Somma, the real-life husband of Morgana Forcella (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0813934/). Francesco himself is played by Lorenzo D’Agata, a young but established talent in Italian cinema and theatre.

The character of Francesco’s teacher, Celestino Pavone, is played bythe multi-talented artist, Claudio Lippihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudio_Lippi.

Francesco’s Auntie Caterina and Saverio, a water-company worker, are played byAngela Caterina and Nicola Pignataro.

Remo Gironeis Angelo Ciretti, Francesco’s grandfather, retired from a life of work with the water company. ‘Nonno’Angelo prefers the peace of the country over living in the urban hustle. To him the water company was more than just work. His co-employees and customers were an extended family, respectful of each other, united around their work, and above in respect for Water.

To Francesco, Nonno Angelo is a guide, leading him towards the Spirit of water in a voyage of discovery and knowledge.

The most important character of all isthe great feminine essence, Water.Francesco meets water at intervals and in different circumstances: in landscapes of uncontaminated nature, in brooks and rivers, in his grandfather’s stories, in science.  It runs, turns and tumbles, assumes new forms. This is the character that nurtures life and love, but who can also destroy all before her. Water is the original of all goddesses, the beginning of life and the poetry of existence. Water is our conscience, our call to duty: our beginning, our environment before birth. Water is the arctheytpe, the primordial sea. Water satisfies our thirst, feeds and protects us.It is the Mother of all and everything, and deserves our respect and humility.

Water is Motion, Union and Peace. Where water is shared intelligently, war is absent. Where there is water, man can choose to align with love and generosity, againstthe spirits of dominance and conflict. 

 

Structured for communication

The Blue Kiss offers learning through two approaches: through communication of emotions, and of facts and further keys to empirical knowledge. To do this it adopts an original cinematic language, beginning with the title of the film. The messages are in the open, up front, without excess technical baggage.

ToFederico Garcia Lorca, rain is ‘a secret of tenderness, that quickens the soul of the land;

A blue kiss, received by the earth, a primitive myth that returns to renew …It is the dawn of our harvest’. Garcia’s powerful image is the opening message, from which the structure of the film develops, in simple concepts and language. Panoramic shots and slow camera movements allow the landscapes, nature,  colors and images to speak for themselves, imprinting the meaning of water. All of the film’s elements converge in harmony. The film flows like water, carrying the encoded messages of life.

The Blue Kiss is for a youth and family audience, and for schools and education. The dialogue unfolds with calm. Language is simple and linear, a conversation in act, yet rich with references to literature, science and philosophy. The narrative is structured as a fable, wherethe lead characters reach a final reward: there are the classic difficulties of the opening context; Francesco embarks on a voyage to his dream; his grandfather, as the fable-like ‘helper’, assisting him in his adventure; above all there isthe presence of the supernatural and spiritual element – Water. Water is the overriding protagonist, the most complex of all the character. As the story proceeds we discover some of its many aspects: it is fragile, evanescent, dreamlike; at the same time powerful; the source of life, now and since time immemorial. It is a ‘personage’ charged with spirituality, who helps Francesco bring his mission to completion.   

The film ‘fable’ also has an ogre, but in this case it is not a full character. Instead the dualistic bad to the ‘good’ of water is represented by the situations to be confronted, from the personal, individual level of the personages in the film and our individual lives, to the shared world crises where water plays a key role.

The task of film editing is to provide life and structure tothe visual narrative. As opera maestro Riccardo Cocciante explains ‘… structure provides art’. Thus the film editing is fundamental in providing the philosophy, content and thought of the film.  In Blue Kiss the screenplay constructs a story within a story: of the personal existential voyage of the characters and of our accompanying global voyage. The narrative parts are assembled in sober, contained style, with strong emphasis on clarity of the message. The editing assists the viewer to perceive, assimilate and understand the content.

Authoritative international voices address the global issues from spiritual, ethical and factual perspectives:  American author and lecturer Lynne McTaggart; Australian Aboriginal elder, Bob Randall; Masaru Emoto, the international researcher and entrepreneur from Japan; teacher and writer Sobonfu Somè, from Burkina Faso; Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq,the Greenland Kalaallit (elderhttp://icewisdom.com/); physician Maka’ala Yates of Hawaii (http://www.manalomi.com/); finally, from Italy, historian and criticVittorio Sgarbi.

The music is by award-winning composer Giovanni Lodigiani, with the voice of soul singer Amii Stewart.

The Blue Kiss is ‘structured’ for communications: characters, narrative, editing, authoritative comment and music all combine for the success of the emotional and factual messages. 

 

Project origin , early backers

The lakes and streams of the provinces of Irpinia-Avellino, nestled in the Appenine hills, descend to the Volturno  River and the plains of Naples. The potential water production is 15,000 cubic metres per second, ranking it among the largest of all Europe’s water basins. These waters serve the entire Region of Campania, and reach north and south towards Rome and Calabria. The agricultural lands, forests and pastures of the basin feed a large share of Italy’s food and economic production. This ancient region is an ecological stabilizer and supplier to the good of a country, a continent, and the world as a whole: an important example of the generosity of Water.

The company responsible for preserving and managing the waters of Irpinia is Alto Calore Services SpA, a community-based corporation founded in 1938 and named for the ‘Upper Calore’ River. By ‘magical’ coincidence, the United Nations determined that the year 2013, the 75^th anniversary of the company, would be the International Year of Water Cooperation. In view of this double event, the direction of Alto Calore Services decided that the company would participate in celebrating the importance of Water as a right of all, and as a symbol of Unity, Liberty and Peace. Given this aim, the company identified that its means of participating would be the film project The Blue Kiss, under the aegis of the International Year of Water.

There have been other film and video productions that deal with water, rivers and seas, but none like The Blue Kiss, that experiment with such lines and techniques of communication. Alto Calore viewed the project as an opportunity for community participation and education on the values, use and protection of water.

The project gained early recognition under the UNESCO Water for Life Decade, and was also nominated by the international NGO, Fondazione Mediterranea, for the UN Water for Life Best Practices Award. Other supporters and early participants ranged from local schools to university researchers, specialists in international development, universities, and national and international NGOs. With such broad input, what has emerged is a message for all man. From this film, even the youngest can understand that water is for all of us, and equally demands care from all of us.

Even the gest of satisfying our thirst is a reminder of the gift of water – a reminder that we are custodians of the world, not its owners. And Water reminds us in her own ways: recently, at an abandoned quarry under a freeway near Rome’s largest train station, a developer attempted illegal construction of a large shopping centre. As if by miracle, the quarry suddenly filled with water, creating an idyllic‘spa’ for the surrounding citizens, and bringing a definitive halt to intense commercial and urban development. This is Water at its best: an attentive and loving mater familiae. But if we are careless in our relationships with water, it becomes a destructive, violent force; a focus of want and violence rather than abundance and sharing.