The Castle

What can and cannot fly through the skies: a young boy from Paraguay with 9 cocaine eggs in his stomach? Red bream that may contain arms? A woman who loses her ticket and is forced to live in the airport bathroom?  All of these questions are raised in this cas-tle that the pair of filmmakers from Milan, Massimo D´Anolfi and Martina Parenti, built when they locked themselves in their city’s airport, Malpensa, to capture everything that went on there during four seasons. It is a film devoted to uninterrupted flight, full of plots to celebrate the beginning of our cycle this year. The first step of any flight is the ground and this is what is seen throughout the film: pedestrians of the air who have been denied the right to fly for various reasons and spend their time in these buildings sealed by ever stricter borders, which are airports. Customs officers have now become the owners of the sky. No sooner are they shooting towards the sky to scare away birds that may damage the aircraft than we see them feeling packets of lobsters in search of false fillings or questioning immigrants by entering in their personal mobile phones.  

The Italian filmmakers, Massimo D’Anolfi (Pescara, 1974) and Martina Parento (Milan, 1972) are the founders of Montmorency Film and together they have directed the documentary feature films: I promessi sposi (2007), Grandi speranze (2009), Il castello (2011), Materia oscura (2013), L'infinita fabbrica del Duomo (2015) y Spira Mirabilis (2016).