Toth Database - Cinema

Bandits in Orgosolo

Duration: 98 min

Color: Black and White

Genre: Dramatic

Director: Vittorio de Seta

Producer: Vittorio de Seta

Photograph: Vittorio de Seta

Editing by Jolanda Benvenuti

Music: Valentino Bucchi

Scenography: Elio Balletti

Performers and characters

Michele Cossu as Michele Iossu

Peppeddu Cucc as Giuseppe Iossu

Vittorina Pisano ( Mintonia )

Notes 

Banditi a Orgosolo is a film directed by Vittorio De Seta, with the same title was published in 1975 a book by anthropologist Franco Cagnetta, the first monographic edition of the essay that appeared in the magazine Nuovi Argomenti in 1954.

It is the sicilian director's first feature film, presented in competition at the 22nd Venice International Film Festival, and won the Best First Work award.

The film takes place in Barbagia and is played by Sardinian shepherds by non-professional actors. It had been preceded by two documentaries filmed De Seta in the 1950s (Un giorno in Barbagia e Pastori in Orgosolo)

Plot 

Michele, a shepherd from Orgosolo, is suspected of abigeato and the killing of a carabiniere. He is innocent, but he is not really thinking about joining or bringing out what really happened. He chooses to go on the run in the company of his younger brother, Giuseppe. Thanks to the help given to him by his fellow villagers Gonnario and Mintonia, he manages to hide among the mountains of Barbagia, but, pursued by the carabinieri, ends up losing all his flock. Out of the desperation from which he is caught, in an attempt to recover what he had lost, he steals the flock from another shepherd, thus transforming himself from a potential victim of a bandit injustice. During some stays in Orgosolo, De Seta had got to know the inhabitants of this corner of Barbagia, the solitary life of the shepherds in their isolation among the rocks and slopes of the Supramonte, forced by the needs of the flock to spend long periods away from their family. He had entered, however much a foreign observer can do so, in the life of the country, discovering the divisions between the social classes or between those who dedicate themselves to pastoralism and are forced to pay high rents for pastures and those who, owning large areas of land, rents vice versa usually collect them.

De Seta's interest has also turned to the story of those who, once pastors, find themselves involved in events from which, out of ignorance, destiny, impotence and mistrust in the state and its laws, he finds himself involved in a small fact that, overwhelming and growing more and more like an avalanche, chooses or finds himself forced to give himself to the stain becoming a real bandit.

1961 Awards Best First Work at the Venice Film Festival, nominated for the Leone D'Oro1962 Nastro d'Argento for Best Photo.