SALICORNIA
17 minutes | Ita | Gaia Longobardi | 2023
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Stefano is twenty years old, with a worn face and a slender body. He lives in Marina Romea, a small seaside town between the lagoon and the sea, where he works as a lifeguard. During summer he is surrounded by people, including a girl in particular, Greta, with whom he forges an elusive bond made of looks. The last bonfire of the surviving tourists awakens a feeling of melancholy in Stefano who begins to perceive that company with a sense of abandonment. The voices of the people are quickly overwhelmed by the animals of the lagoon, and an increasingly cold climate marks the emptying of the city. At the end of the season the only presences in Stefano’s life start towards the programs of the year to come, leaving promises to meet again and a deep silence that permeates the country. The oppressive atmosphere of the place and the stagnant water of the swamp, reflect the deep sense of loneliness in Stefano, who in search of an inner connection comes to inflict himself physical pain.
OUR TAKE
"Salicornia" is a dramatic short film that falls within the coming-of-age category, depicting a transitional moment towards new realizations through the classic elements of contemporary Italian short films. In this work, the director has successfully achieved the ambitious goal of portraying a sentiment, an atmosphere, a melancholy that envelops the viewer from the opening minutes, establishing empathy with the protagonist through unspoken words. Everything else speaks: the squeak of a mouse, friends at the bar, a mother and child at the beach, the sea, Greta, the girl whom the protagonist meets and perhaps hopes could be a means to overcome loneliness. Gaia Longobardi's great merit lies in having constructed a believable small universe, a very challenging feat for newcomers, capable of making even the most unlikely aesthetic and narrative choices plausible.
Still Photos
About
DIRECTOR
Gaia Longobardi was born in Ravenna in 2000. She was passionate about photography and theatre from an early age and spent three years in Media Design in NABA (Milan), starting to work on short films in the directing department. In 2022, through a workshop and the supervision of Michelangelo Frammartino, she writes and directs "Condominio N* IMX172" selected later in the Perspectives section of the Filmmaker Fest 2022 and in the short films competition at the Karawan Fest 2023. The same year she worked as assistant director in the next film by Fabio Ercole Martina. She attends the tenth edition of the Filmidee Summer School where she has the opportunity to confront various directors including Yuri Ancarani. She concludes 'Salicornia', her first fiction short film, as a thesis project with which she graduated with honors.
