The era of giants

Original production

2023

73"

In Apulia, a region in the Southern part of Italy, the most severe plant emergency of the century is underway. The xylella fastidiosa, a powerful bacteria, is killing millions of olive trees, altering the landscape, the economy and interpersonal relations. There still isn’t a cure for this epidemic which is travelling north, threatening EU territories.

Giuseppe goes back to his father’s homeland, in the plain of monumental trees in the Itria Valley, to tell the old farmer about what he saw in Salento and trying to understand how their lives will be affected by the upcoming arrival of the bacteria. Alien pathogens destroying a century-old land, climate change, rebirth. Xylella is the paradigm for an invisible enemy which threatens our very existence and, at the same time, the human being’s ability to imagine a future.

Direction: Davide Barletti e Lorenzo Conte
Screenplay: Davide Barletti, Lorenzo Conte, Roberto Greco, Stefano Martella
Editing: Domenico De Orsi
Cinematography: Davide Micocci
Production manager: Danilo Dell‘Olio
Producers : Davide Barletti e Ivan D‘Ambrosio
Sound: Michele Leucci
Sound Editing: Giuseppe D'Amato
Production: Fluid produzioni, Dinamo Film
International sales: Summerside Media

Press release

Festivals

Festival del Cinema Europeo - Lecce
FIPA DOC - Biarritz

The main idea of the film is to contaminate the traditional style of an investigative documentary with a creative pace, taking us through an apocalyptic journey. The frustration and rage the viewer takes away from Barletti and Conte’s film when faced with the upsetting spectacol of the Xylella’s progression in Apulia is indescribable

A. Mancino (La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno)

It’s not easy to watch The era of the giants, a movie which has the great merit of retracing with great expertise and craftsmanship the last decade which brought to Salento first, and to the rest of Apulia later, the greatest phytosanitary emergency of the century

A. Gaeta (La Repubblica)

In The era of the giants we find an upsetting parallelism with the events from the past two years, from scientists’ negationism and hesitation, to the creation of an imaginary enemy and the disorganisation of public operations. The authors of Fine pena mai and La guerra dei cafoni tell a drama which affected an entire community with their unmistakable style.

N. Signorile (Il Corriere del Mezzogiorno – Corriere della Sera)

The era of giants can capture the viewer’s attention thanks to its passionate and emotional storytelling, which belongs to an almost diary-like style, so silent and private.

T. De Pace (Sentieri Selvaggi)

The era of giants is an immersive experience inside of an ecological disaster, but it also opens new perspectives and forces you to think back to a lifestyle which had already run its course”

P. Casella (My Movies)

Mario Rigoni Stern once wrote in his collection Arboreto selvatico It is the great population of trees. He looked at firs, larches, birch trees, ash trees, and saw a live community. That’s exactly how Davide Barletti and Lorenzo Conte are able to capture them in their The era of giants, as an ancient and gentle people threatened by the bacteria'[…]

G. Bona (Film TV)