BELVA NERA

Hercules, a peerless hunter of the Roman countryside, firmly believes that a panther – a “black beast” – is hiding deep in the woods and regularly devouring chickens, rabbits, sheep… This rumour of a fierce creature haunting the forest near the Italian capital steeped the filmmakers’ childhoods and they now return with cheering antics for a film mixing a “mockumentary”, a Western ambiance and the moving portrait of a hunter-farmer able to casually strike up a tune from Tosca. In front of the camera, people spontaneously become characters, playing out their beliefs by giving them epic dimensions. Through the daily life of Hercules and his friends from Vejano and the intervention of Tony Scarf, an actor and panther specialist, the small community is depicted as a powerful machine for creating fantasy and fiction, which the film relays with exhilarating inventiveness. Beyond the picturesque aspect and the places and characters anchored in mythology, the hunters’ relationship with truth and legend touches a political nerve of ancient and contemporary Italy: the relationship to the collective, the law and the State. (Charlotte Garson)