Two looks in comparison

In early October it will be released first in theaters and then in streaming, a very particular case for an often conventional panorama such as that of the current cinematographic offer.
This is Traveling by Gianfranco Rosi presented out of competition at the recent Venice Film Festival. We have already talked about Gianfranco Rosi on these pages as his documentaries such as Fuocoammare (winner in Berlin in 2016), Sacro Gra (winner in Venice in 2013) and Notturno have won awards and garnered acclaim at the main international festivals.
Often necessary and crucial works in presenting and analyzing with skill and visual talent the situations of difficulty, cruelty and hardship of the last in some areas of the world such as Lampedusa or the Middle East.
Itineraries that follow the red thread of the central themes of our time: poverty, nature, migrations, the condemnation of all wars and solidarity. And above all itineraries also followed by Pope Francis with tireless self-denial through his frequent apostolic journeys.
Hence Rosi's very simple idea of following the pope in a remote dialogue between the flow of the travel archive and the cinematic images of him.

A work that chronologically analyzes the 37 journeys (from Brazil to Cuba, from the USA to Africa and Southeast Asia) and the speeches based primarily on 200 hours of video materials (out of the 800 available in the Vatican Media archive), images of Rosi and images of current events and recent history. So Rosi: «The film is the portrait of a man who makes us look beyond and reflect on universal themes. The first challenge of Traveling was to transform films made for television needs into cinematic language.
As the editing progressed, however, the need arose to bring the story of the pope's travels into dialogue with materials from the historical archives and with fragments of some of my films.
And finally working on new scenes shot by me. Another challenge was constructing an ending for an ongoing film, destined to remain open. A film which, following the upcoming journeys of Pope Francis, will address new themes, new reflections».

Davide Bracco
NP October 2022