In the Shadow of a Volcano

An encounter with a legendary director at Italy’s film restoration powerhouse set her on a course for a life in cinema.

Born in 1979 in Torino, home to the National Museum of Cinema, Gaia Russo Frattasi’s first love was theater. She pursued this passion at the University of Torino. After graduating with a degree in theater history, she discovered L’Ipotesi Cinema, a series of workshops featuring industry professionals and hosted by Italy’s film restoration powerhouse Cineteca Bologna. After attending a workshop taught by veteran director Ermanno Olmi, she decided to change her focus from theater to cinema. Shortly thereafter, she made the documentary “Miriam – Variazioni” about a popular Torino nightclub act. The short film premiered at the 2005 Torino Film Festival and was awarded Best Film or Video.

Russo Frattasi has honed her craft over the years, making numerous videos and documentaries with her production company, Moby Film. A few years ago, while accompanying her friend on a research assignment at a weather station on Stromboli, an island dominated by an active volcano, she met her future protagonist, Carolina. The elementary school teacher was selling ceramic art made by her students to raise money for her association, "Scuola in mezzo al mare" (School in the Middle of the Sea). In particular, they needed to buy a satellite dish for remote learning. The story struck the young filmmaker, and that’s when her next project began.

The resulting 2019 documentary, “Scuola in mezzo al mare,” is an enchanting and insightful film that follows Carolina in her quest to provide a comprehensive learning experience for the children of Stromboli while keeping their parents from pursuing education off the island. The documentary features long, uninterrupted shots of life as it plays out, with candid conversations among parents about the benefits of raising their children on the island versus the downsides of growing up in extreme isolation.

“Before doing the actual shooting, I was on the island several times alone with my camera to interview the inhabitants and understand how their life worked, from education, to services, to the relationship with nature, to depopulation,” Russo Frattasi explains in an interview with Fra Noi.

After securing funding for the film, she put together a small crew. She chose two women — cinematographer Sabina Bologna and sound engineer Sonia Portuguese — because she felt an all-female crew would be more sensitive to the people’s plight. Her goal was to spotlight the challenges of operating an education system in the shadow of a volcano that erupts about 20 times a day.

The film documents the harsh weather changes on the island and their impact on its residents. “Despite the paradisiac summer facade, every winter the community experiences loneliness and isolation. The school often remains closed, and the island inexorably depopulates,” Russo Frattasi explains.

Watch a few clips from our interview...

The documentary sheds light on the lack of services many Italian territories face due to the massive movement toward large urban centers. Russo Frattasi’s message is that we need to foster a deep relationship with nature and to rediscover ourselves as integral to the ecosystem in which we are immersed. “Nature is not to be seen as an obstacle, but with us as guests,” she says. “We need to ask ourselves if, and how, a life is possible outside the big city.”

The film concludes with a touching and dramatic scene of the students making their way up Mount Stromboli to explore the terrain. They talk among themselves about their fears of living so close to an active volcano, standing over it in amazement as it begins to rumble. Russo Frattasi says that shooting the scene was as incredible as watching it. “We reached the top around sunset time. There was a lot of wind. We almost couldn't keep the camera still on the tripod. The ash rose copiously, and we had to clean the lenses all the time. Shooting while the volcano erupts is an indescribable emotion.”

Click here to watch "Scuola in mezzo al mare" with English subtitles on Amazon. To watch more of Russo Frattasi’s work, visit her Vimeo channel at vimeo.com/gaiarussofrattasi.

- Written by Jeannine Guilyard for the January, 2023 edition of Fra Noi Magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Comments

The Sweetness and Genius of Giulietta Masina

Fellini and Masina on the set of "La Strada" As open-hearted and sunny as Federico Fellini was dark and complex, they were perfect counterpoints during a half-century of marriage and professional collaboration. Nicknamed a “female Chaplin” and described by Chaplin himself as the actress who moved him most, Giulietta Masina confronted the tragedy of her characters with an eternal innocence and enthusiasm that gave Italians hope in the most challenging of times. Born in 1921 in San Giorgio di Piano, a commune north of Bologna, Masina was the oldest of four children born to a father who was a music professor and violinist and a mother who was a grade-school teacher. Her parents sent her as a child to live in Rome with her widowed aunt while she attended school there. As Masina took an early interest in gymnastics, her aunt saw in her a passion for performing and encouraged her to pursue acting. So after high school, Masina attended Rome’s La...

Ornella Muti: Five decades of Acting and Still Going Strong

Ornella Muti was born Francesca Romana Rivelli in Rome in 1955 to a Neapolitan father and an Estonian mother. She began her career as a model during her teenage years and made her film debut in 1970 with “La Moglie più bella” (The Most Beautiful Wife). Her follow-up role was in the 1971 film, “Sole nella pelle” (Sun on the Skin), in which she played the daughter of wealthy parents who runs off with a hippie they don’t approve of. The film offers a telling journey through Italian society in the seventies, with its political climate, breathtaking seaside, and the styles and cars of that time. Much of the film is set amid the sunny Italian seaside and captures the innocence and beauty of first love. Muti made her American film debut in 1980 with "Flash Gordon." She played the role of Princess Aura. She’s appeared in two other American films, including “Oscar,” directed by John Landis and starring Don Ameche, Chazz Palminteri, and Sylvester Stallone. In 1992, she w...

Alessandro Gassmann: Born to Act

Alessandro Gassmannin his directorial debut "Razzabastarda" Alessandro Gassmann is the son of the iconic Italian actor/director Vittorio Gassman and French actress Juliette Mayniel. He was born in 1965 and grew up around cinema royalty. He made his cinema debut in 1982 at the age of 17 in his father's autobiographical film, "Di padre in figlio." He went on to study his craft under his father's direction at the Theatre Workshop of Florence. Vittorio Gassman was very active in theater and seemed just as comfortable on stage as he did in front of the camera. Known for his powerful interpretations of Dante's "Inferno" and "Paradiso," it is no surprise that he nurtured his son's acting aspirations on stage before he launched his career in television and film. One of Gassmann's strong qualities, which he undoubtedly inherited from his father is his incredible range and ease in going from genre to genre. He can play ...

A Conversation with Documentary Filmmaker Luigi Di Gianni

His documentary films have given voice to a people who would have otherwise been forgotten while preserving rituals and traditions no longer practiced. Visually stunning and emotionally moving, they reflect an Italy we’re not used to seeing in cinema. Born in Naples in 1926, Luigi Di Gianni captured a dimension of Italy that people outside the South didn’t even know existed. He began his career working in the region of Basilicata, which back then was referred to as Lucania. He first visited the region with his parents when he was a boy. His father, being from the Lucanian village of Pescopagano, wanted to show his son his homeland. That trip made an impression on the 9-year-old and created a deep affection that would one day inspire him to return. “I always remained very emotional about returning to this part of my homeland of Lucania,” he says. “It seemed like a different planet compared to Rome, where I lived. The tiring journey, the unpaved roads, the difficulti...

The Timeless Vision of Pier Paolo Pasolini

Pondering his films and poetry, I wonder if the uniqueness of Pier Paolo Pasolini's films was rooted in his unconventional childhood. Born in Bologna in 1922, Pasolini's father was a lieutenant in the army, and his family was always moving. He grew up in various small towns in Northern Italy. After his parents separated, he spent most of his time in his mother's hometown of Casarsa, in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. There, he grew to respect the area's peasant culture and began to write poetry in the region's dialect. He studied literature and art history at the University of Bologna and was drafted into the army during World War II. The war proved to be especially tragic for his family as his younger brother was executed by Communist partisans. Following the war, he returned to Casarsa where he worked as a teacher and ironically became a leading member of the Communist party there. Pasolini was later expelled from the party due to allegations of homo...

Italian Cinema Today

Search This Blog