The Holy Day
by Mattia Petullà
synopsis
Nino lives in a village in the Ionian Aspromonte of Calabria, where Ancient Greek has been passed down orally for millennia and is now spoken only by a few elders. Like so many others, Nino once left in search of a better life but returned to this austere, majestic place he cannot abandon. His presence guides us through a landscape that is both hostile and enchanting.
Through a series of timeless moments, the boundaries between humans, animals, and nature begin to blur.
biography
Mattia Petullà graduated in Communication Sciences and specialised in cinema at the Alma mater studiorum university in Bologna. After working in a media activism project called ‘Telestreet’, against Berlusconi’s television monopoly in the 2000s, he contributed to the creation of a small independent production company, Elenfant Film, for which he worked as an editor and produced his first short films as a director.
His work often focuses on the “last” or “loosers”, always trying to highlight a bright side of them.
He is also interested in the impact of the environmental transformations produced by human societies on the individuals.
His approach is ethnographic. The material for the stories he wants to tell often comes from contexts he has frequented and experienced first-hand or through direct knowledge of people who have done so and who in many cases become protagonists of his films.
His first feature film is on the border between ethnographic documentary and fiction and tells the story of a young group of seasonal nomads workers in search of their place in the world; ‘Terra in vista’ was released at the end of 2022 in the international competition of the 26th Ji.hlava IDFF and distributed in other film festivals and vod plateformes.
For more information: mattiapetulla.com