Title: Pecore in erba (Burning Love)
Director: Alberto Caviglia
Genre: Mockumentary
‘Pecore in erba’ (Burning Love) is a film that brings up the issue on antisemitism in a new way. Jews are no longer victims: they are placed on the other side of the barricade antagonising an “unrightfully haunted” anti-Semitic. Through this new approach the topic which has conquered the history books, involves people in a new way and sensitises them on the matter.
The story begins in July 2006, when Leonardo Zuliani has disappeared, from the Roman neighbourhood of Trastevere. The shocking news becomes a fully fledged national emergency. A huge group of supporters crowds around the house of the young activist. Leonardo’s mother is desperate, and every television channel is talking about him. All the authorities express their solidarity with the family. Many people don’t want to believe it, maybe hoping it is another one of his publicity stunts.
Who was Leonardo Zuliani? This question hooks the audience instantly. Some say he was a communications genius, others a successful cartoonist, a visionary stylist, a renowned writer, a civil rights activist. Paradox rules as Leonardo’s history is retraced, to what lead him to be an anti-Semitic maître à penser.
This movie is intended to entertain, through the testimonies of true intellectuals who have played the game of pretending how enlightening and forward thinking Leonardo’s theories were. Play on words, invention, and popular culture rule the narrative. Leonardo (the name is no casualty since it evokes the greatest Italian polymath of all time) is an inventor, an over-the-top character, an amiably villainous Forrest Gump who involuntarily changes history.
‘Pecore in erba’ is a divertissement which tells the tale of a growing young man and irreverently refers to areas closely related to Jewish humour, through the storytelling of Semitic filmmaker Alberto Caviglia.
Technical: A
Acting: A
Story: A
Overall: A
Written by: Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
