18/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio explore different musical traditions in various regions of Italy in a lyrical documentary painting a portrait of a forgotten, rural world

Four years on from their previous film, Una Promessa [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianluca and Massimiliano D…
film profile], twins Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio are returning to the big screen to present their latest work, Canone effimero [+see also:
trailer
film profile], in the 75th Berlinale’s Forum line-up. It’s a work unfurling across eleven acts, or precepts, and which roams across various areas of Italy, documenting a fragile and endangered world. The film’s protagonists are the locals who are trying to keep ancient customs and traditions alive. What starts out as a traditional documentary from its opening frames – and whose academic format suggests artistic ambitions – ultimately turns into a journey which carefully documents its findings whilst also closely focusing on style: long shots capturing the touching performances of Arbëresh choirs in Lucania and polyphonic choirs from inland Liguria, with the camera fixed on the artists’ faces, are alternated with brief panoramic shots showcasing the landscape which forms the film’s backdrop. A country road, snowy locations, villages clinging to mountains. Places telling little stories which weave their way into history, namely the resistance and the American landings in Sicily. Canone effimero ultimately offers itself up as a survival guide.

The geography singled out by the De Serio brothers is unusual. Sometimes we follow the founding itineraries of pioneers Alan Lomax and Diegi Carpitella who travelled through Italy in the 1950s in search of hidden treasures, sowing the seeds for ethno-musical research in Italy (see Ceriana in Liguria). Sometimes it lingers on religious rites, mediated, however, by local voices and telephone screens, in an approach which underlines the De Serios’ determination not to lay claim to these images. We see Basilicata, Sicily, Le Marche. There’s a need to visit the country’s remotest corners in order to stay in touch with reality and to counteract the proliferation of social media images which portray Italy as an exclusive country club; and to immortalise certain traditions, exorcising the fear that they’ll disappear altogether.

In this sense, Canone effimero is a precious documentary. The act of filming in order to preserve is a noble endeavour, but it’s actually an oxymoron, as the film’s title [in translation, Ephemeral Canon] suggests, because since the creation of film, images have been destined to deteriorate. It’s true that the movie might have benefited from a more rigorous approach – traditions might be ancient but they’re not always aesthetically valuable – but we wouldn’t want to miss out on impassioned descriptions of how  zampogne bagpipes are made in Calabria, how folk songs are born and passed on, and why the Americans’ arrival in Sicily in the Second World War disrupted the donkey-borne coal trade. Given the success of different folk music scenes currently touring the globe, and the desire for a revival seen in folk horror films in recent years, we might describe Canone effimero as a product of its time.

Canone effimero was produced by La Sarraz Pictures.

(Translated from Italian)