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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Finding Thule (2021)

November 25, 2022 By Cory Balon

Finding-Thule-Documentary-Opening-Titles-Trailer“Following years of careful study, mathematician Giancarlo sets out to find the treasure hidden in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Inspired by his passion, a group of scientists, truth-seekers and filmmaker Sofia E. Rovati, travel to the heart of Iceland to join him on the most anticipated expedition yet: Finding Thule.”

“Finding Thule is a feature-length documentary that tells the story of Italian engineer-turned-explorer Giancarlo Gianazza, who during the course of several years sets out to a remote region of central Iceland on a quest to find the Holy Grail.”

[. . .]

“Throughout the years the project becomes a larger-than-life adventure into which the filmmaker is inevitably drawn. Stepping in front of the camera, Sofia starts noticing and tracing parallels between her personal journey and the autobiographical journey of Dante. The lines between reality and fiction start to blur as the characters of the Divine Comedy come alive and this real-life treasure hunt in Iceland’s ethereal landscape turns into a discovery of what lies within.”

Find more about Finding Thule here.

Categories: Digital Media, Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2021, Documentary, Documentary Films, Earth Science, Films, Garden of Eden, Holy Grail, Iceland, Italian, Italy, Journeys

Purgatorio: A Journey Into the Heart of the Border Film, dir. Rodrigo Reyes (2013)

January 12, 2022 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

purgatorio_rodrigo_reyes_poster“Reyes’ provocative essay film re-imagines the Mexico/U.S. border as a mythical place comparable to Dante’s purgatory. Leaving politics aside, he takes a fresh look at the brutal beauty of the border and the people caught in its spell. By capturing a stunning mosaic of compelling characters and broken landscapes that live on the US/Mexico border, the filmmaker reflects on the flaws of human nature and the powerful absurdities of the modern world. An unusual border film, in the auteur tradition of camerastylo, Purgatorio ultimately becomes a fable of humanity, an epic and visceral experience with powerful and lingering images.”    –description on Kino Lorber (retrieved January 12, 2022)

Watch a trailer for Purgatorio on Vimeo here.

Categories: Digital Media
Tagged with: 2013, American Politics, Borders, Documentary, Films, Immigration, International Politics, Mexico, Migration, Purgatorio, Purgatory, Spanish, United States

“My Dante” crowdfunding for a documentary

June 18, 2021 By Professor Arielle Saiber

my dante

“Director, Producer and Scriptwriter, Melissa Butz Corsi, and Cameragirl, Editor and Creative Director, Irina Oborina, joined up as a two-person team to showcase a fresh and modern Dante…”    —Gofundme

Categories: Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2021, Documentary, Florence, Italy

Selva Oscura

December 21, 2019 By lsanchez

“Selva Oscura is a music documentary that explores the creative process during the making of a music video for the song ‘Stolidi Pensieri.’ It also references the opening of Dante’s Inferno and translates to ‘The Dark Forest.’ It’s symbolic of a journey to unknown destinations, which is also our story, as we accidentally created a living project that never had a predetermined outcome and led us in a direction where we were all free to experiment within our disciplines.”    –John Welsh, Vimeo, September 8, 2017

Categories: Music
Tagged with: 2017, Dark Wood, Documentary, Inferno, Journeys, Music, Selva oscura

Zhao Liang’s “Inferno”-inspired documentary (2016)

May 29, 2016 By Professor Arielle Saiber

interviews_zhaoliang__article-hero-1130x430

“Zhao Liang’s Behemoth blurs the lines between video art and documentary, visually exploring multiple open-pit coal mines in the sparse hinterlands of China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The film, loosely inspired by Dante’s Inferno, forgoes the spoken word completely. It stylistically melds poetry and performance art to portray the lives of various coal miners and iron smelters as they struggle to produce raw material fast enough for China’s ever-growing economy. The largely plotless film draws one in through the sheer juxtaposition of its monstrous, inhuman-sized landscapes and the intimate close-ups of miners’ soot-covered faces. Though banned from being screened inside China, the film was shown to a packed house in an underground screening room on the outskirts of Beijing this past February. The next day, we sat down in Zhao’s Beijing art studio, where the filmmaker was as wry in his humor as he was cynical, discussing everything from his views on censorship to the relationship between art and activism.”

See the interview in Slant, March 16, 2016.

Trailer

 

Categories: Performing Arts, Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: China, Documentary, Films, Inferno, Mongolia

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All submissions will be considered for posting. Bibliographic references and scholarly essays are also welcome for consideration.

How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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