Procida

Procida was born from the images shot by the 12 young people from Campania who participated in Procida Film Atelier 2022 held during Procida’s tenure as Italy’s Capital of Culture 2022. The film workshop, aimed at teaching how to direct documentary cinema and the making of an anthology film, was directed by Leonardo Di Costanzo (director of The Inner Cage, presented at the 78th Venice International Film Festival and winner of two David di Donatello awards for best original screenplay and best leading actor). He was assisted by directors Caterina Biasiucci, Claudia Brignone and Lea Dicursi, his former students at FILMAP - Atelier di Cinema del Reale in Ponticelli, Naples.

The training project took place between June and July 2022 with an intensive workshop that saw students and teachers immersed in the life of the island to merge with its inhabitants and their stories. The participants, aged between 17 and 25 and, above all, coming from different film training backgrounds, in some cases none at all, experienced a unique training and production process. During the workshop, after an introduction to how to use a camera and microphones, the students divided into pairs (video and audio) and filmed exercises and sequences, followed by continuous collective screenings led by the teachers. Goals: to learn how to film space, our surroundings, everyday places, domestic space; how to film time and an action in its becoming; how to film speech, how to establish a relationship with the filmed subject.

This is how the research, study and observation of reality on the island of Procida continued: forming relationships with the people to be filmed, location scouting, researching archive material, both public and private: us and the island, the island and us. This was followed by the writing and presentation of the idea: creating itineraries and poetic visions starting from locations on the island, through researching the gaze used for each of the stories filmed by the participants, up to the identification of the narrative focuses of the film. Hence, from the images shot during a month-long workshop, the anthology film Procida was born, which was actually written in the editing room with the delicate and intense work of Lea Dicursi and Claudia Brignone.

The making of the film confirmed the project's intentions as an opportunity to foster the growth of 'human capital' and build creative and technical skills that remain the heritage of the territory, by enhancing learning and culture through the language of film as a tool for individual and collective development. Starting from young people and their gazes, connected to their roots, but projected into the future, the film animated a process that involved the community and was nourished by the inspiration of the island, its openness to the world and its welcoming soul full of stories and beauty. This film is important as a process of learning and observation, of questioning and research.