Luciana Fina
Questo è il piano, 2020
Video HD, sound, color, 20’

Director, Image and Sound
Luciana Fina
Editing and Sound Mixing
Elsa Ferreira
Color
Andreia Bertini
Soundtrack  
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, "Questo è il piano" Cantata per contralto, archi e basso continuo, voice Gloria Banditelli , conductor  Fabio Maestri.
Complesso Barocco In Canto

Supports
MNAC, Kino Sound Studio
Acnowledgments
Cinemateca Portuguesa “Sala de Projeção”, Ernesto Rodriguês, Edmea Brigham, Cristina Fina, Luísa Homem.

Filmed between March and April of this year, ‘Questo è il piano’ is a visual poem about the antinomic exercise of survival and destruction.
In these months of confinement, as appeals were made to the survival of (the) species and many demanded that our ways of life and the systems which govern economic development be reconsidered, in a coastal area of the Alentejo which was once protected and preserved, I came across a vast deforestation project advancing among the dunes, indifferent to the pandemic, devastating a large part of the forest. Acquired by an American conglomerate, this wide stretch of land and its lush forest of pines and cork oaks has been devastated and transformed to give way to a golf course and a luxury resort project. The enormous operation threatens the forest and the water resources of the region, completely ignoring the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves, the dangers of desertification, the urgent need to protect the ecosystem and to maintain equilibria that are inseparable from our existence.
During the outbreak of the pandemic and the suspension of our lives it was painful to witness the continuing devastation. I produced ‘Questo è il piano’ in response to the pressure of two antinomic forces then simultaneous and manifest: the appeal to the survival of (the) species and the indomitable exercise of destruction. Conceived with a nature of urgency, the project sought make use of the limited means I had at my disposal in the contingency of confinement: a mobile phone and a digital recorder.
Questo è il piano premièred in November at Doclisboa. For the exhibition, in accordance with my cinematographic practice, the film acquired the new form of an installation.

Luciana Fina, November 2020



The context of the pandemic we are currently living through has brought about a deeper reflection on the ecological crisis. Many authors have pointed to the relationship between the imbalance of ecosystems and the potential for outbreaks of disease.  

Land occupation and property speculation are two of the most disruptive components to environmental equilibrium, and these activities continue to be carried out on a global scale.

The film produced by Luciana Fina during the period of isolation, between March and April 2020, reflects precisely on the destruction of areas surrounding nature reserves for the construction of tourism ‘development’ projects.
 
At a time when the effects of the pandemic have led to a slower pace of life, and seem to have incentivised a regeneration of the planet and people’s lifestyles, the reality of a continued programme of capitalist development indifferent to the consequences of its destructive activity resulted in this film of denunciation and disillusionment.

Created using only two structural shots, the felled trees and panoramic views of the ravaged landscape, it is through the sustained duration of a wide travelling shot that we witness the destructive effect of machines, only heard, never seen, overcome with a sense of powerlessness faced with the transformation of reality.  

Pergolesi’s baroque cantata Questo è il piano places the film in the allegorical and melancholic field of observation of the ruins of our time. A state which, as Walter Benjamin observed, is established in the confrontation between sadness and rebelliousness, acedia and anger. The melancholy of this film can and should be understood in the framework of a critical awareness, in which the artist, like the philosopher, gathers the ashes of the world and gives them new meaning.

Emília Tavares