Film Commission Torino Piemonte

The title The Corsair River is a reference to "Corsair Writings" by Pier Paolo Pasolini, a 1970s volume of radical critique of developed Western societies. There is something universal in this journey of antiheroes searching for themselves and a sense of belonging. The need to adopt different and sustainable life models is universal, embracing feelings of care for the space and the communities that inhabit it. This small anabasis portrays the cruelty and beauty of the river landscape, an epic that becomes a parable of a lost society. Our story unfolds on the brink of an abyss of economic, ecological, urban, and anthropological disaster that concerns us all. The observational work lasted four years. A long period during which the lives of the protagonists and our own were turned upside down. During the making of the film, co-director Pietro Balla passed away. I would have liked to continue battling with him in the editing room, but that doesn’t make the film any less irreducibly “ours”.

I want to conclude these notes with Pietro's words. When a woman on the riverbank, during the shooting, asked what story we were telling and whether it would end with the creation of the “Pasolini Path”, he replied: “It’s a story of certain losers. I don’t know exactly who is right or wrong, because the matter is very complicated. But it’s paradigmatic of these times... When will it end? It will last until we can resist.”