The roots are oriented towards water

A fairy tale is a story of anonymous and popular adventures in which the marvelous dominates, both in the episodes and in the characters. Fairy tales live of an ambiguous space-time location and arise from a psychic necessity: that of elaborating each time a new personal narration of a story that belongs to a distant common past.

In this territory this story develops which, as often happens, returns to the country of origin, mine: a small town set in the hills of Emilia Romagna kissed by the river.

It was born subconsciously, under the house, between the neighbors and the valley, a few months before my father died of cancer, in October 2017.

During that summer he read “Bar Sport” by Stefano Benni and I read “La luna e i falò” (“The moon and the bon res”) by Cesare Pavese.

This long-term project lies between his laughter and my melancholy,

the lightness of our comic daily life and the weight of reality that already becomes memory. A visual diary that goes in search of light and shadows, reality and fantasy, along the banks of that river that nourished my youth and that now cradles my pain.

The time of narration is that of the day in his birth and in his dying,

as the memory that I will have forever of him. The valley, the slow pace of the town and the gardens, form the background.

He always told me that trout die if they don’t live in clean water:

“Le radici si orientano verso l’acqua” (“The roots are oriented towards water”) is my clean water, the only way I know to stay with him again

among the tomatoes of his vegatable garden.