Sorrisi asmatici is a work in progress by the Italian experimental film-maker Tonino De Bernardi, well known to the regular festival-goer (Rotterdam showed fragments from the first part Fiori del destino/Les fleurs du destin in 1996 and 1997). The film focuses on sirens, mermaids and mermen who roam the country. De Bernardi makes his film partly in places where film festivals show his work. The pictures are accompanied by his own theatre/music group, that comprises e.g. several sopranos and tenor, a multi-instrumentalist, a narrator and a guitarist. Improvised music is inventively mixed with the work of classical composers such as De Falla, Vivaldi and Strauss. Fiori del destino, that won a special jury award at last year’s Taormina Film Festival, is a ‘normal’ film with old footage – including shots in Dunkirk and in the port of Rotterdam – and new material that was recut. In part II, La forza della illusione, the sirens continue on their way, discover in ‘Southern climes’ the story of the earth and adopt increasingly human poses and movements. Part II and III will have a live accompaniment.
