Film: The Eight Mountains

An epic journey of friendship and self-discovery set in the breathtaking Italian Alps, The Eight Mountains is a landmark cinematic experience as intimate as it is monumental, as deep as it is expansive. Adapting the award-winning novel by Paolo Cognetti, directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch (The Broken Circle Breakdown) portray through observant detail and stunning landscape photography the profound, complex relationship between Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), who first meet as children when Pietro’s Turin family vacations in an isolated village at the base of the Alpine slopes. As they mature, Pietro becomes estranged from his business-minded father (Filippo Timi) even as Bruno-emotionally abandoned by his own father-takes up the role of surrogate son. Pietro’s father’s death reunites the two in realizing his dream of constructing a cabin on the Alps, and the project and subsequent explorations of the awe-inspiring mountain range bond Pietro and Bruno in a shared purpose. Yet despite their connection, the purity of nature and the demands of society both threaten to drive the men to pursue different, possibly irrevocably divergent paths on the vertiginous terrain of life. Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

This film was selected in response to the exhibition TULA TELFAIR: N A T U R E does not locate itself by film historian and educator, Gerard Amsellem, who will moderate a Q&A after the screening.

About Gerard Amsellem

Artist, educator and filmmaker Gerard Amsellem has directed several short films and is currently working on two independent film projects. His short film, Bartleby (2013), was awarded a Director’s Citation by the Black Maria Film Festival and made an Official Selection of both the Garden State Film Festival and the Twin Rivers Film Festival in Asheville, NC. The mission of his production company, New Waves Productions, is the promotion of film as an art form and public access to high quality cinema. He also just finished a documentary on a French painter called “Creation until the end Bernard Requichot”

As an educator, Gerard developed the curriculum for the first ever foreign film course at Livingston High School and he also pioneered a program that engages students in the art of film-making, from screenwriting to editing.

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