Cinema in Meters

The spinning reels, the rapid clicking of film running through the camera, the beam of

light from the projector passing through the frames: film is undoubtedly cinema’s most

iconic image, even though for decades now the vast majority of films—from amateur videos

to major Hollywood productions—have been made using digital equipment.

There are many reasons for this paradigm shift, and they are easy enough to grasp: to

name just a few, digital is a more stable medium, allows scenes to be viewed in real time,

and dramatically reduces production times and logistical complications.

What, then, drives some of Italy’s most acclaimed, intelligent, inventive and award-winning

directors to return to film, despite its being, in every respect, far less convenient?

To answer this question, Fulvio Risuleo, himself one of the most original and promising

directors of his generation, sat down with many of the key figures of the Italian film

scene—Pietro Marcello, Francesco Sossai, Alice Rohrwacher, Alessandro Comodin, Saverio Costanzo…—and, over the course of these conversations, gathered answers that were surprisingly varied and complex.

Far from being the result of a nostalgic or elitist outlook, the choice to shoot on film emerges instead as a radical artistic stance. We discover that “in a hyper-digital world, faster than our thoughts, there are artists who choose to slow down, to stop and think, to give themselves boundaries within which they can dig deeper,” giving us the chance to continue enjoying an aesthetic and poetic experience whose allure seems untouched by the passage of time.