Country: Italy
Year: 1992
Duration: 35'
"The video Living Without was made on our return from a trip to the Cape Verde Islands, an archipelago out in the Atlantic Ocean, still too far off the touristic and journalistic routes of adventurelovers. With barely 300,000 inhabitants, this remote country is desperately searching out its role in the world. The drama of its everyday existence is that of the drought it is the farthest extension of the African Sahel and of the lack of any serious prospective for development. Our aim was to investigate that poor comer of Africa for the Tv program 'AmbienteItalia' a production of Rai Turin aired every Saturday afternoon on Raitre throughout the country. 'AmbienteItalia' offers reports on the environmental problems of Italy and other countries in the recognition that an 'international' perspective on this issue is needed in view of the breadth of the questions involved and of the interdependence of the political and institutional responses to them. In a few days we shot about fifteen Beta cassettes. On our return, we made several reports of three to five minutes, our usual broadcast length. We still had an abundance of material left over which we had shot. It forced us to keep on working and to struggle for the first time with a video. Living Without is the 'fresh' chronicle of our trip shot in the way in which we first 'saw' the Cape Verde Islands on arriving from a rich western country. The title refers to the people of this country who manage to live with dignity without many things despite the precariousness of life and often the absence of a future. Almost all the people we interviewed are the Capuchin brothers who hosted and accompanied us. Their community is in certain respects the backbone of the democratic renaissance of the archipelago, where last year the population voted for a change in the government". (Piero Damosso, Sergio Zenatti, Giorgio Mensi)
Biography
film director
Piero Damosso
Piero Damosso, a 34-year-old Turinese, graduated in political science. Ho has been a professional journalist for Rai Turin since 1987. Ho previously worked for the weekly of the Turin diocese, "La voce del Popolo" and for the newspapers, "La Gazzetta del Popolo" and "Avvenire". He worked with Sergio Zavoli in making three cycles of Viaggio intorno all'uomo (Raiuno), La notte della Repubblica (Raidue) and Viaggio nel Sud (Raiuno).
Sergio Zenatti
Forty-four-year-old Sergio Zenatti has been a television cameraman and journalist for Rai Turin since 1979. Ho shot films and reports for the local and national Rai news services, especially in Africa and Central America. For the last several years ho has also been involved in teaching "video information", giving lectures and classes in the public schools of the Piedmont Region.
Giorgio Mensi
Fifty-five-year-old Giorgio Mensi has been a television journalist for Rai Turin since 1964. He has shot films and reports for the regional and national news since 1964 covering various European countries and Brazil. He also has a strong passion for editing.
Cast
& Credits
Regia, sceneggiatura, fotografia e montaggio: Piero Damosso, Sergio Zenatti, Giorgio Mensi.
Production company: Rai Piemonte, via Verdi 14, Torino, tel. 8104836/837673, fax 878998.
Production company: Rai Piemonte, via Verdi 14, Torino, tel. 8104836/837673, fax 878998.