International Competition

The Challenge

Yuri Ancarani
Screening time  
28.02. / Tuesday, 12:00 - 14:00 Theatre 4  
03.03. / Friday, 22:00 - 00:00 Theatre 4  
04.03. / Saturday, 17:00 - 19:00 Theatre 2  
A film that captures the spirit of a falconry tradition that today allows its practitioners to keep a close rapport with the desert, despite their predominantly urban lifestyle.

Falconry has a history that stretches back over 40 centuries. In the West it was a prevailing passion of the medieval aristocracy, but its prestige continues undiminished in contemporary Arab culture. Three years of observing this form of hunting in the field have made it possible to capture the spirit of a tradition that today allows its practitioners to keep a close rapport with the desert, despite their predominantly urban lifestyle. Our guide to how they cross that threshold is a falconer taking his birds to compete in a tournament in Qatar. In the glaring light of an empty landscape, following flight lines and lures, the film recounts a strange kind of “desert weekend”, in which technological and anthropological microcosms hang in the air, like the falcon, drifting on the irreversible currents of images.

Yuri

Yuri Ancarani

Yuri Ancarani, born in Ravenna in 1972, is an Italian visual artist and director. His work has been acknowledged both in the realms of cinema and of contemporary art. His last five films have been shown and awarded in more than a hundred international festivals, including Locarno, Venice and Toronto, and in the most important museums of the world: Centre Pompidou in Paris, Guggenheim Museum in New York, Venice Biennale. Filmography: Séance (2014), San Siro (2014), Da Vinci (2012), Piattaforma Luna (2011), Il Capo (2010).

General sponsor

France, Italy
2016, 69'

Directed by:
Yuri Ancarani

Screenplay by:
Yuri Ancarani

Cinematography:
Yuri Ancarani, Luca Nervegna, Jonathan Ricquebourg

Edited by:
Yuri Ancarani

Music:
Lorenzo Senni, Francesco Fantini

Producers:
Christophe Gougeon, Fabrizio Polpettini, Pierre Malachin, Tommaso Bertani

Produced by:
Atopic, La Bête, Ring Film

Festivals & Awards:

Locarno International Film Festival 2016 – Special Jury Prize; IDFA 2016; La Roche Sur Yon International Film Festival 2016; Vienna International Film Festival 2016; Free Zone Film Festival 2016; Seville European Film Festival 2016; Mar del Plata International Film Festival 2016; Torino Film Festival 2016; Dubai International Film Festival 2016