''The Strawberry Tree'' () is a 2011

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

directed by

Simone Rapisarda Casanova Simone Rapisarda Casanova is an Italian experimental filmmaker currently living in Canada. In 2014, he won the Leopard for Best Emerging Director at the Locarno International Film Festival. Life Rapisarda Casanova was born in Catania, Italy. ...

. The film premiered at the 2011

Locarno Film Festival The Locarno International Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narr ...

Subject

A year after

Hurricane Ike Hurricane Ike () was a powerful tropical cyclone that swept through portions of the Greater Antilles and Northern America in September 2008, wreaking havoc on infrastructure and agriculture, particularly in Cuba and Texas. Ike took a sim ...

swept their village away, fishermen from Juan Antonio,

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

, 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 Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

and

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

techniques and continuously interact with the filmmaker. The traditional

fly-on-the-wall Fly on the wall is a style of documentary-making used in film and television production. The name derived from the idea that events are seen candidly, as a fly on a wall might see them. In the purest form of fly-on-the-wall documentary-making, ...

paradigm is thus both defeated and rendered obsolete.

Production

Rapisarda Casanova’s stylistic hallmarks include his elliptical,

metacinematic Metacinema, also meta-cinema, is a mode of filmmaking in which the film informs the audience that they are watching a work of fiction. Metacinema often references its own production, working against narrative conventions that aim to maintain the a ...

approach to storytelling, his use of non-actors,

diegetic Diegesis (; , ) is a style of fiction storytelling in which a participating narrator offers an on-site, often interior, view of the scene to the reader, viewer, or listener by subjectively describing the actions and, in some cases, thoughts, o ...

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

and the

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Description IDFA is an independent, international meeting place for audiences ...

. In 2012 it screened at the

Los Angeles Film Festival The LA Film Festival was an annual film festival that was held in Los Angeles, California, and usually took place in June. It showcased independent, international, feature, documentary and short films, as well as web series, music videos, episodi ...

and the Miami Film Festival, and it received the Most Promising Filmmaker Award at the

Ann Arbor Film Festival The Ann Arbor Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Established in 1963, it is the fourth-oldest film festival in North America (after the Yorkton Film Festival, 1947; Columbus International Film & Video Festival, 19 ...

. The film ranked 33rd in ''

Film Comment ''Film Comment'' is the official publication of Film at Lincoln Center. It features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Founded in 1962 and originally released as a quarterly, ''Film ...

''s list of the "50 Best Undistributed Films of 2012".

Awards

* Most Promising Filmmaker award,

, MI, USA * NFB Award for Most Innovative Canadian Documentary,

DOXA Documentary Film Festival The DOXA Documentary Film Festival is a documentary film festival based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is held annually held for 10 days in May, and is presented by The Documentary Media Society, a non-profit organization. The festiv ...

, Vancouver, Canada * Best Documentary award,

Cine Las Americas International Film Festival The Cine Las Americas International Film Festival is an annual film festival based in Austin, Texas, featuring Latine and indigenous films from the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula. Patrons of the festival are offered a wide variety of films to c ...

, Austin, TX, USA * Grand Jury Honorable Mention,

Miami International Film Festival The Miami Film Festival, formerly Miami International Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Miami, Florida, each March. Since 2015 the festival also runs a smaller Fall Festival, known as the Miami Film Festival GEMS, which presents ...

, FL, USA

Collections

Bibliothèque nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...

Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; ) is the federal institution tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the 16th largest library in the world. T ...

References

External links

Official webpage of ''The Strawberry Tree''
a

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Strawberry Tree Films about filmmaking Self-reflexive films 2011 films 2010s avant-garde and experimental films 2011 documentary films Italian avant-garde and experimental films Canadian avant-garde and experimental films Italian documentary films Canadian documentary films Cuban documentary films Films set in Cuba Cuban avant-garde and experimental films Spanish-language Canadian films 2010s Canadian films 2010s Spanish-language films