'The White Chief' by Yuri Ancarani

Yuri Ancarani’s film Il capo (2010), shows the dialogue between man and machine in the marble quarries of Carrara and is selected by GAMeC in Bergamo, Italy. Set against a spectacular backdrop of mountains, the work focuses on the head quarrier who choreographs huge excavation trucks using signs and gestures.

Yuri Ancarani extracts a striking portrait of marble, “Marble quarries are places so unbelievable and striking, they almost feel like they are big theaters or sets,” says Yuri Ancarani, the filmmaker behind today’s excerpt from the documentary, Il Capo (The Chief), which follows a quarry boss as he guides his men through the extraction process, using a silent language of gesture and sign.

Ancarani was captivated by the otherworldly landscapes of the quarry. He spent nearly a year filming on Monte Bettolgi, in the Carrara region of the Apuan Alps, in Northwest Italy, eventually deciding to focus his film on the hypnotic, and rather dramatic moment when the monumental marble blocks are freed from the mountainside, and fall to the ground with an earth-shattering thud.

“I was so taken by the chief. How he can move gigantic marble blocks, but his own movements are light”, “How he can move gigantic marble blocks using enormous excavators, but his own movements are light, precise and determined.", says Ancarani.

About the director.-

Yuri Ancarani (Ravenna, 1972) is a visual artist, director and lecturer in Video Art at the NABA - Nuova Accademia Belle Arti (Milan). His works have been shown at national and international museums and exhibitions, such as.- MAXXI, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo (Rome, Italy), R. Solomon Guggenheim Museum (New York, USA), Cinema Eye Honors, Museum of Moving Image (New York, USA), Prague Biennal 5 (Prague, Poland), XIV Biennale Internazionale di Scultura (Carrara, Italy), 14 Media Art Biennale Wro (Wroklav, Poland), ZERO...gallery (Milan, Italy), Fair: Berlin (Berlin, Germany), T.I.C.A. Tirana Institute of Contemporary Art (Tirana, Albany), La Friche Marseille (France), Videoart Yearbook 09. And at several film festivals.- 67th and 68th Venice Film Festival (Venice, Italy), Hot Docs, Canadian International Documentary Festival (Toronto, Canada), Cinema Eye Honors (Museum of Moving Image, New York), IFFR International Film Festival Rotterdam (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), DocuWest Documentary Film Festival (Colorado, USA), 23rd IDFA International Documentary Film Festival (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), SXSW (Houston, Texas), 4th Ann Arbor Film Festival (Michigan, USA) Full Frame Documentary Festival (Dhuram, USA), True/False Film Festival (Columbia, Missouri), Cinéma du Réel (Centre Pompidou, Paris, France).