Se hai una montagna di neve tienila all'ombra - A Journey through Italian Culture

By Elisabetta Sgarbi

DVD + Book Available On IBS

Which is the place of culture in Italian people's feelings, in their real life?
Should we make the best of a formal definition of culture - that is a shared value system, lying behind the behaviour of a given community - or can we go further?
For instance, can we ask to people living, working, reading or not reading, loving or not loving, what does the word culture means for them?
We chose this second way, looking at askance at that formal definition, and attempting to surprise the passer-by, to catch in him any hesitation, any thought, any certitude, any value, any flick.

During this journey - which has actually been a real journey, a Grand Tour - we have passed through several Italian regions, trying to make both places and people talk.
We never ventured out by ourselves, though. In every place we visited, we asked for the help of influential persons, directly working in culture, who possibly know those places.
As a second Dante, we needed a series of different Virgilio: Franco Battiato, Remo Bodei, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, Maurizio Ferraris, Lucio Dalla, Massimo Donà, Umberto Eco, Enrico Ghezzi, Antonio Gnoli, Piero Guccione, Guacomo Marramao, Francesco Merlo, Laura Morante, Giovanni Reale, Antonio Rezza, Manlio Sgalambro, Vittorio Sgarbi, Sandro Veronesi and many, many others...