Four stories, each of them linked to a different season, set between memories and modernity in the Sardinia of the year 2000. In Primavera, four children (Andrea, Peppeddu, Macangiu and Istene) arrive from the mountains by truck and discover for the first time the sea beyond the dunes. In Estate, a young shepherd meets Solveig, a French girl landed on the beach with her biplane. She initiates him into sex, and he falls in love with her. In Autunno, a nun goes back to her village for her cousin’s wedding and, during the celebrations, she is prey to an indefinable melancholy. In Inverno, an elderly person crosses the city by night looking for a prostitute, he invites her home, but he dies before making love with her. Played almost completely in Sardinian dialect, this feature film marking Mereu’s debut is a kind of visual “symphony” combining bitter and sweet taste. Four directors of photography contributed to it, among whom the Swiss master Renato Berta. Unknown actors play alongside professionals like Caroline Ducey and Yaël Abecassis, who is often present in Israeli Amos Gitai’s films. The first two episodes are the best, but the whole film has a Mediterranean anthropological freshness and honesty that do not however disdain some “Fellinesque” touch. The title refers to the traditional “ballu tundu” dance of the island.

Salvatore Mereu

He was born in Dorgali, in the province of Nuoro, in 1965. He graduated in Arts, Music and Entertainment (at the DAMS founded by Umberto Eco) in Bologna and took a diploma in filmmaking at the Experimental Centre of Cinematography in Rome. He works as filmmaker and photographer, but he also teaches image education. In 1996 he shoots the short film Notte rumena, followed by two other short films: Prima della fucilazione (1997) and Miguel (1999). In 2003 he debuts as feature film director with Ballo a tre passi, which wins the International Week of Film Critics section of the Venice Film Festival. This film was awarded the prize “for the intensity with which it represents different existential conditions, giving a universal value to a local reality”. The film participated also in the Rotterdam Film Festival and in the Sundance Film Festival of Robert Redford. The Sardinian pride is highlighted by the music performed by the Chorus of Nuoro. The filmmaker says: “We always start from what we know best. I grew up and I still live in Sardinia, so I could not neglect my land. I tried to represent the language of life”.