TARA

Hybrid Film by Volker Sattel & Francesca Bertin

D / I 2022 | 86 min | DCP | 5.1 | Italian with English subtitles

with Jasmine Pisapia, Adriana Sellani, Cataldo Ranieri, Marco Tomasicchio, Vincenzo Romito

World Premiere: Visions du Réel 2022

Director of Photography: Volker Sattel
Steadicam / Underwater Cam: Thilo Schmidt
Sound Recording: Filipp Forberg
Editor: Bettina Blickwede
Sound Design: Tim Elzer
Sound Mix: Jochen Jezussek
Grading / Mastering: Till Beckmann
Artistic Consultant: Stefanie Gaus

Produced by Volker Sattel FuFi Film
Tuned by Kirberg Motors

Funded by BKM, Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Goethe Institute Naples, German Films

Contact: info@tara-film.com 

Synopsis

The river Tara is situated at the outskirts of the Italian port city of Taranto. “River of Good Fortune” is what people call this place ridden with legends, whose waters are said to have healing and magical powers despite its being toxic. Today, Taranto is considered one of the most polluted cities in Europe due to high levels of dioxin emissions and masses of dust emitted by a colossal steel factory, ILVA.

Through poetic and precise images, TARA explores the parallel between economic and ecological exploitation, while following people living at the margins and trying to survive in the ruins of post-capitalism.Throughout this complex landscape, we follow a young researcher on her forays through the city.

TARA develops a polyphony of narratives and a cinematic topology of a region where Pasolini had found the setting for his film Gospel According to St. Matthew in the 1960s. The film unveils the river as a model for a never-ending precarious condition: a resistant place where faith, class-consciousness and a new relationship with nature might flourish.

Text: Koerner / Sattel