The Strawberry Tree

The Strawberry Tree (Spanish: El árbol de las fresas) is a 2011 experimental film directed by Simone Rapisarda Casanova. The film premiered at the 2011 Locarno Film Festival.[2]

The Strawberry Tree
SpanishEl árbol de las fresas
Directed bySimone Rapisarda Casanova
Release date
  • August 2011 (2011-08) (Locarno)[1]
Running time
71 minutes
CountryCuba-Canada-Italy
LanguageSpanish

Subject

A year after Hurricane Ike swept their village away, fishermen from Juan Antonio, Cuba, recall their vanished homes and daily lives. Their memories call forth images that had been shot just a few days before the devastation.[3] However, the ethnographic documentary film that ensues is neither predictable nor conventional. For the filmmaker-ethnographer has rejected the use of scripts of any kind and has become entangled in a paradoxical dialogue with his subjects.[4] The poor yet educated Cuban fishermen prove to be familiar with ethnography and documentary film techniques and continuously interact with the filmmaker. The traditional fly-on-the-wall paradigm is thus both defeated and rendered obsolete.[5]

Production

Rapisarda Casanova’s stylistic hallmarks include his elliptical, metacinematic approach to storytelling, his use of non-actors, diegetic off-screen sound, meticulously-composed static single-takes, low camera angles and careful elaboration of natural light and colour.[6] His approach to filmmaking is mostly process-driven, after careful research of the thematic base.[7] The intent behind such stylistic and methodological choices is to create cinematic occasions where people and places may reveal their deepest nature.[8]

Release and critical response

In 2011, The Strawberry Tree was screened at the Locarno Film Festival and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. In 2012 it screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Miami Film Festival, and it received the Most Promising Filmmaker Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. The film ranked 33rd in Film Comment's list of the "50 Best Undistributed Films of 2012".

Awards

Collections
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gollark: Just don't clean up your room.
gollark: If you believe in yourself and/or have the power of friendship, you can do anything.
gollark: This is* possible.
gollark: Exercise in bed?

References
  1. "El árbol de las fresas". www.locarnofestival.ch. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  2. "Locarno Sets Slate For 64th Edition". 13 July 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  3. "2012 Ann Arbor Film Festival". Academic Hack. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  4. "The Strawberry Tree: LAFF review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  5. "Images Conscious". Art Forum. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  6. "Discovering the Spiritus Loci: Simone Rapisarda Casanova on The Creation of Meaning". Filmmaker Magazine. 2015. Retrieved 29 May 2016.
  7. "Pacifico's Heights". Cinemascope. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
  8. "A tree that's no longer there: An interview with filmmaker Simone Rapisarda Casanova". Austin Vida. 2012. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
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