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Il girasole – una casa vicino a Verona

Switzerland, 1995
FILM, Documentary, 15 min.

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directed by
Christoph Schaub, Marcel Meili
Written by
Christoph Schaub, Marcel Meili
Status
In distribution

The Futurist dream of architecture in motion here becomes reality: the Casa Girasole-its name describing its project-follows the light of the sun, for it is so constructed that it is capable of completely turning on its own axis. When the house, seen from the outside, changes orientation with respect to the nearby hills, from the interior it offers a series of selected landscapes. The motion is smooth (for technical reasons, a complete rotation takes several hours), which in its slowness, is perceived as a succession of states. From a filmic point of view, the pivoting house offers the eye of the confirmed idler - in the role of ideal inhabitant - neither traveling shots nor pans, but radically extended montage sequences. Rather than being explained, the spatial principle applied to the building is made perceptible through the act of contemplation. The film thus gives a restrained and precise description, in its very discretion, of the utilization and current state of this extraordinary building. Conceived by the Genoese engineer Angelo Invernizzi as a country house for himself and his family, it was constructed between 1930 and 1935 near Verona. Fictional characters, joined by the old mechanical operator of the house and the daughter of the engineer, create a connection with this work of architecture and its history. A subjective commentary underscores the experimental character of a film capable of making one feel the force of utopian ideas, without effacing the historical distance that separates it from the era when the Casa Girasole was built.

credits

World Premiere
1995
Original Version
Italian,  colour, 35mm, 15 min.
Production
Schaub Filmproduktion GmbH
Producer
directed by
Christoph Schaub, Marcel Meili
Written by
Christoph Schaub, Marcel Meili
Cinemato­graphy
Matthias Kälin
Editing
Christoph Schaub, Fee Liechti
Location Sound Mix
Martin Witz

World Sales / World Rights

World Rights
Schaub Filmproduktion GmbH

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