The Strawberry Tree
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- August 2011 (Locarno)[1]
| The Strawberry Tree | |
|---|---|
| Spanish | El árbol de las fresas |
| Directed by | Simone Rapisarda Casanova |
Release date |
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Running time | 71 minutes |
| Countries |
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| Language | Spanish |
The Strawberry Tree (Spanish: El árbol de las fresas) is a 2011 experimental film directed by Simone Rapisarda Casanova. The film premiered at the 2011 Locarno Film Festival.[2]
A year after Hurricane Ike swept their village away, fishermen from Juan Antonio, Cuba, recall their vanished homes and daily lives. Their memories call forth images that had been shot just a few days before the devastation.[3] However, the ethnographic documentary film that ensues is neither predictable nor conventional. For the filmmaker-ethnographer has rejected the use of scripts of any kind and has become entangled in a paradoxical dialogue with his subjects.[4] The poor yet educated Cuban fishermen prove to be familiar with ethnography and documentary film techniques and continuously interact with the filmmaker. The traditional fly-on-the-wall paradigm is thus both defeated and rendered obsolete.[5]
Production
Rapisarda Casanova's stylistic hallmarks include his elliptical, metacinematic approach to storytelling, his use of non-actors, diegetic off-screen sound, meticulously composed static single-takes, low camera angles and careful elaboration of natural light and colour.[6] His approach to filmmaking is mostly process-driven, after careful research of the thematic base.[7] The intent behind such stylistic and methodological choices is to create cinematic occasions where people and places may reveal their deepest nature.[8]