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Ensembles: OTEME (2010) | Vaga Orchestra (1994/2005)| Ensemble Il Teatro del Faro (1991/2002)

		Festivals Synopsis Sections Credits Excerpts

Festivals

STRASBOURG INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - Nomadic Tendencies 2010 GLOBIANS DOC FEST BERLIN - 2010 Lucca, 8 MINUTI DAL SOLE, 1 MINUTO DALLA LUNA - L'Immagine del Suono 2010 URBAN NOMAD - Video-Art Exhibition May 15th - 30th, 2010 FESTIVAL 5 GIORNATE 2010 - Milano, Cinque Giornate per la Nuova Musica CINEMAVVENIRE VIDEO FESTIVAL 2010 - Roma Lucca, Circolo del Cinema, 1 Marzo 2010 CAMBOFEST 2009 (URBAN KNOTS) - Official Selection

Synopsis

THE WALBRZYCH NOTEBOOK is a sort of anthropological portrait of the Polish town of Walbrzych, a former mining site active until the 90s; after a period of crisis, due to the closing of the mines and the consequent firing of hundreds of workers, the city starts today to show some signs of renewal. The film focuses on spaces and people moving inside this reality, it explores the effects, but avoids any kind of historical or scientific speculation on what has happened; more than a real documentary, the film looks like a painter’s draft book, a representation of a place and a time, filtered by the eyes and the ears of a visual-sound artist. In fact the film is conceived like a sort of music composition, a score combining natural sounds, speeches, instrumental music, as well as images.

The film, divided into several episodes, some of which can be considered as authonomous standalone movies, includes excerpts from the two previous videos Czarna Madonna (2004/2005) and Four Studies On Location And People (2005/2008).

As the previous Chiayi Symphony (2006/2007), The Walbrzych Notebook can be considered a sort of visual-sound diary; everyday life sequences are reinterpreted as pure actions and tranformed into surrealistic paintings melted down into a sort of long audio-visual stream-of-consciousness; the soundtrack, scored for electric guitar, natural sounds, wind and percussion instruments, strongly contributes to move the film on the oneiric level. The final result is an anthropological representation of a labirynth where from time to time people’s private actions and stories rise up to become universal. A meditation about action, stasis, doing and undoing, environment, daily rites and religious trust.
The Walbrzych Notebook stays halfway between a documentary and a video-art project, an extended music composition and a sound-image performance. Entirely produced by S.G. the film is his first feature.

 Sections

The Testament (Part 1)
Zofia is at home, alone; she is knitting and wondering. Then she starts a long slow trip to the graveyard where Mieczyslaw, her husband, is buried; Mieczyslaw’s voice-off holds an intense monologue against priests and church. The landscape changes from springtime to winter.

Urban Knots
Some images of the streets of Walbrzych are overlapped in an odd compositive game. A long trip by car in black and white. The same streets at night time.  City as a knot of spaces and directions.

Visiting Families A video puzzle of footage shot while visiting families. Drinking, chatting, eating. Old Polish traditional songs accompany the game.

The Box A couple of interviews to Jurek and Ewa, an elder man and his wife, about their past lives, are interpoled by a surreal sequence describing Jurek’s walk to an old mausoleum on the hills around the city of Walbrzych. A bird breaks a net and flies away freely from the mausoleum. Music for electric guitar, percussion and winds.

Tourist Guide - Michal, a boy 13 years old is the youngest tourist guide in Poland. He speaks about Walbrzych and leads us touring into the city: the old market square, today restored, the coal deposit area, the Church of Angels etc.

Trust - A priest sings the old Polish song Czarna Madonna re-arranged as a pop song and interpreted in a surrealistic tv-recital atmosphere. An army of priests in uniform celebrate the catholic mass in pomp of colours. The picture slowly detunes as in an old tv, and dissolves into a bundle of electric waves.

Return Ticket - A slow and hypnotic endless winter trip by train from a big city (Wroclaw) to Walbrzych. A subjective walk through the old centre of Walbrzych, not yet restored, reveals a sort of post-industrial desolated landscape, made of fatiscent palaces; the camera moves like an eye exploring a deserted labyrinth, underlined by a soundtrack made of foot steps in the snow, ice sounds, objects falling down. Then the trip back by train. Little stations, snow landscapes, passengers’ thoughtful faces slide away like a film on a screen. To arrive again, like in a hallucination, to Walbrzych.

The Testament (Part 2) - Winter time. Zofia visits Mieczyslaw in the graveyard. Mieczyslaw goes on with his monologue against the church. Zofia cleans the tomb; suddenly it is springtime. Mieczyslaw asks where he goes when he is in Heaven. Zofia slowly goes away from the graveyard on her husband’s final existential question: “Do you really believe in such bullshit?”

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Credits

THE WALBRZYCH NOTEBOOK Length: 71'30" min. Languages: Polish, German (with some Italian and English) Subtitles: English, Italian Subject and direction: Stefano Giannotti Director's assistants: Mariola Krajczewska and Matilde Giannotti Interpreters: Zofia and Mieczyslaw Krajczewscy, Ewa and Jerzy Krajczewscy, Joanna and Zuzka Wuszczynski, Michal Machowski and other inhabitants of the Polish town of Walbrzych Director's Assistants: Mariola Krajczewska and Matilde Giannotti Original music composed and produced by Stefano Giannotti and some traditional Polish Songs(Public Domain) Stefano Giannotti: electric guitar, radio-waves, Revox tape-recorder, field recordings and treatments. Translations by: Mariola Krajczewska, Annalisa Pace (Studio Lucca Traduce), Stefano Giannotti,Lia Stefani, Gina Stefani Special Thanks to: Maria Teresa Elena, Giacomo Verde, Andreas F. Müller, Ullabritt Horn, Mariola Krajczewska for their precious support Special Thanks also to: Jerzy Wuszczynski, Alina and Janusz Borcon, Gabi and Lilka Lukomska, Joanna Oleszek, Domenico Trubiano and Bruno Fiorino Produced by Stefano Giannotti, between 2004 and 2009 with the support of friends and relatives © Copyrights by Stefano Giannotti All Rights Reserved The piece is available also as film/performance (film with music live)

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