Chichester Cinema at New Park
The Tree of Wooden Clogs
- L’Albero Degli Zoccoli
This is a rare screening of the greatest film made by the highly regarded Italian director Ermanno Olmi (Il Posto).
Set in Tuscany at the end of the nineteenth century, the film is a vignette-style depiction of several peasant families who all reside in the same farmhouse. Olmi brilliantly paints their struggle for survival through a series of small incidents: a wedding, the rescue of a sick animal, and even secret tomato-growing.
Shot in an almost documentary style, and using a non-professional cast, Olmi lovingly captures the joys and sorrows and the spirituality of life in rural Italy at that time.
Olmi wrote, directed, and shot the film, which has proved a testament to the strength of the human spirit, and for which the director deservedly won the Palme D'Or for Best Picture at Cannes in 1978.
Italy · 1978 · Ermanno Olmi · 179min
