6.2 /10 1 Votes
Release date 2011 Country Cuba-Canada-Italy Initial release 11 August 2011 Screenplay Simone Rapisarda Casanova Cinematography Simone Rapisarda Casanova | 6.2/10 IMDb Running time 71 min Language Spanish Director Simone Rapisarda Casanova Producer Simone Rapisarda Casanova Editor Simone Rapisarda Casanova | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Directed by Simone Rapisarda Casanova Similar Buena Vista Social Club, Gambling - Gods and LSD, Bestiaire, Bora Bora, Yuri Lennon’s Landing | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The strawberry tree
The Strawberry Tree (Spanish: El árbol de las fresas) is a 2011 experimental film directed by Simone Rapisarda Casanova.
Contents
Tedxyouth isb milos milisaljevic the strawberry tree
Subject
A year after Hurricane Ike swept their village away, fishermen from Juan Antonio, Cuba, recall their vanished homes and daily lives. Their memories call forth images that had been shot just a few days before the devastation. However, the ethnographic documentary film that ensues is neither predictable nor conventional. For the filmmaker-ethnographer has rejected the use of scripts of any kind and has become entangled in a paradoxical dialogue with his subjects. The poor yet educated Cuban fishermen prove to be familiar with ethnography and documentary film techniques and continuously interact with the filmmaker. The traditional fly-on-the-wall paradigm is thus both defeated and rendered obsolete.
Production
Rapisarda Casanova’s stylistic hallmarks include his elliptical, metacinematic approach to storytelling, his use of non-actors, diegetic off-screen sound, meticulously-composed static single-takes, low camera angles and careful elaboration of natural light and colour. His approach to filmmaking is mostly process-driven, after careful research of the thematic base. The intent behind such stylistic and methodological choices is to create cinematic occasions where people and places may reveal their deepest nature.
Release and critical response
In 2011, The Strawberry Tree was screened at the Locarno Film Festival and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. In 2012 it screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Miami Film Festival, and it received the Most Promising Filmmaker Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. The film ranked 33rd in Film Comment's list of the "50 Best Undistributed Films of 2012".