“It is a kind of journey into wonder, because the great power of Italy is beauty”: the journey is that of the CAI Italy Path, 7200 kilometers of great beauty. A path that unites the whole country from Santa Teresa di Gallura to Trieste. And who will be the protagonist of an upcoming documentary with a more than evocative title, "The long beauty". The line with which we opened is borrowed from the trailer for the documentary which will probably be ready by the end of the year.
It is directed by the director Luca Bergmaschi, who made use of the collaboration (with Paolo Baldricchi, logistics organizer) of the director of the monthly CAI Montagne 360, Luca Calzolari, and of the journalist and mountaineering historian Roberto Mantovani. The latter already in the 80s was part of the nucleus of walkers and journalists who conceived the Sentiero Italia, an ambitious project of a hiking route that begins in Santa Teresa Gallura, in Sardinia and ends in Muggia, in the province of Trieste. After having climbed the entire Apennine ridge from south to north and crossed the Alps from west to east, touching all the Italian regions.
The Sentiero Italia CAI had been inaugurated in 1995, then at the end of the nineties it had fallen into oblivion. The CAI, together with the Sentiero Italia Association and with the help of many, many volunteers, recovered and relaunched it three years ago. Five hundred stages, a dedicated site (Sentieroitalia.cai.it), many reception points, official hiking guides. And the forthcoming documentary by Luca Bergamaschi. To express that "long beauty" which is the heart and the protagonist of this film. “Telling this journey and its many stages - explains Bergamaschi, an Italian who has lived and worked in France for over twenty years - it represented a double emotion for me. On the one hand, I had the opportunity to see unique territories in the world. On the other hand, I experienced the feelings of the emigrant who observes and internalizes all this beauty with special eyes. A unique experience that made me re-evaluate my country ".
The long beauty is the title of his documentary, a non-random choice ...
“Absolutely not, the title was chosen remembering the director Paolo Sorrentino and his film The great beauty. The total documentary project lasted about a year and a half, also due to the difficulties related to Covid. After shooting, we are now editing and I expect everything will be ready between the end of September and the month of October, maximum by the end of 2021 ".
How was this project born?
“The first to think about it was the CAI, they made me the proposal and I accepted. It all stems from my previous collaboration with the Italian Alpine Club on the occasion of a documentary I made for Disney Plus, The Wonders ofUnesco. Among the Unesco sites there are also the Dolomites to which a chapter of that work is dedicated ".
The narration of the Sentiero Italia Cai follows the red thread of three geographical areas, told by three different guides
“Yes, we have entrusted the story of the great beauty of Italy to three characters. Hélène Blondel, French, walking from Santa Teresa di Gallura in Sardinia to Punta Campanella in Campania. Vito Paticchia, a XNUMX-year-old expert walker who travels the Apennine ridge from Pietracamela in Abruzzo to Colle di Cadibona in Liguria. And Eugenio Chemello, twenty, who guides us From Pian del Valasco in the Maritime Alps to the Eastern Alps up to Muggia, near Trieste. In their walk these three particular guides not only describe what they see but also let the local inhabitants, historians, geologists tell them about the territory. The idea is that of the encounter. They walk together to discover villages, landscapes, history. Stopping also in little inhabited places but still interesting for their historical fabric. In the final montage the story of the three different geographical areas will not be in sequence but will be interleaved ”.
What will the final length of the documentary be?
“That of a television documentary, about 52 minutes, even if in the specific case it is not a television documentary. We do not rule out making a longer edition of it ”.
At the end of this experience, what does the director Luca Bergamaschi from Italy tell us?
"Who, having traveled and worked a lot abroad, throughout Europe, Italy is a unique country. For its diversity, for the very rare landscapes, very different, for example, between the Apennines and the Alps. The Alps capture our eyes and the Apennines tell us the story. And the south in its beauty is very affective, also narrating the hardships especially of its past. In this documentary we tell about a less known and equally beautiful Italy. It is the picture of Italy in another dimension, along the path of a path that is certainly one of the longest in Europe and in the world ”.
Photo source: Italian Alpine Club
