Sacro GRA

Synopsis

The “Grande Raccordo Anulare” (GRA) surrounds Rome. This imposing ring road forms a car trench separating the city from its suburbs. An informal society has formed itself around the eight-lane freeway where a character gallery lives under the car flow. The filmmaker Gianfranco Rossi moved to the GRA for a year in order to film in close proximity those who live where cars rush at 120 kilometers per hour. He found two worlds which graze past one another without ever making contact. On one hand, the middle class which uses this route morning and evening to go to work in Rome; on the other hand a heterogeneous collection of people composed of a heir from the dolce vita, a plumber who built his home on a parking lot, an engineer, a Gypsy, an Ethiopian. Like Raymond Carver, Rossi plunges into this human maze that swarms around, under, over and near this terrifying freeway, which cuts as a stanley knife through the roman geography.

Director Biography

Gianfranco Rosi graduated from New York University Film School. He has produced, directed and photographed: Boatman: shot in India in 1993; Afterwords, which premiered at Venice Film Festival in 2001. He also worked as director of photography and cameraman for several documentaries. BeHe is a guest lecturer at New York University Film School, and the CCC in Mexico City and teaches documentary at SUPSI in Switzerland and at the Accademia del l’immagine in L’Aquila.