Forum Guest Country: Italy

Creatura!

Director: Irene Dionisio
Producers: Emanuele Segre, Alessandro Bernard, Irene Dionisio
Production Company: I Cammelli S.A.S.
Estimated Duration: 20 Minutes
Current Stage Of Development: Early Development

Synopsis:
At dawn, a small lizard with its tail cut off escapes from a child’s hands. We’re in Valle d’Aosta, near a mountain farm. It’s time to milk the cows, but the routine is interrupted: François witnesses the birth of a goat. The newborn kid seems doomed. To spare him worry, his parents hide the truth. That night, restless, François returns to the stable and discovers the kid has two heads. Soon after, it dies. Shaken, the boy drifts in and out of sleep, haunted by visions and fears. At sunrise, he ventures into the woods where he first saw the creature, waiting for the sun’s rays to work a miracle. And when the light finally touches him, the kid lets out a bleat. François is stunned, and so is his mother, who has come searching for him. The story ends on this fragile, glowing moment: perhaps something, against all logic, has returned to life.

Director’s Biography:
Irene Dionisio (Turin, 1986) is a filmmaker, visual artist, curator, and educator. Her documentary The Factory Is Full – Tragicomedy in Eight Acts (2012) was presented at Visions du Réel and the Taichung Film Festival. Her feature debut Le ultime cose (2017) premiered at Venice International Film Critics’ Week, earning nominations for the David di Donatello and Golden Globes Italy, and winning a Nastro d’Argento for Best Screenplay. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Magazzino Italian Art (New York), OCAT Shanghai, PAC Milan, Palazzo Grassi, and the UN. In 2021 she received the Giuseppe Bertolucci Prize. Her next feature film, Idda, is upcoming.

Producer’s Biography:
Born in Turin in 1978, Alessandro Bernard began his studies in Humanities with an anthropological focus. When a well-known professor refused to accept his audiovisual paper on The Masche of Upper Canavese during an exam session (a work he had painstakingly produced for the time), he decided to change path and graduated from the MULTIDAMS program. Since 2006, he has alternated his passion for creative documentary filmmaking and new technologies, working both as a writer and director of documentary films — Space Hackers (2007, 52’), P101 – The Machine Who Changed the World (2011, 52’), Waste Mandala (2015, 52’), This Space Could Be Yours (2023, 70’), The Forest Code (2025, 90’) — and as a writer and producer of cross-media projects (Transiti – Rediscovery, Linfe, The Busker, Mama’s Got the Blues, among others). Since 2015, he has been a regular Producer of I Cammelli, where he has taken on various creative and production roles.