Martina Parenti · Massimo D'Anolfi

Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari is an 'encyclopaedic' documentary divided into three acts each that deals with specific subjects: animals, plants, stones.

Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari is an 'encyclopaedic' documentary divided into three acts each that deals with specific subjects: animals, plants, stones. The film is a tribute to the 'unknown', and in some ways alien, world of animals, plants and stones which we too often take for granted but with which we should actually be in constant dialogue since it constitutes the essential part of our existence on planet Earth. The acts are closely interconnected because they create a unique dramaturgical development through three different staging devices. Each act of the film is a tribute to a specific genre of documentary cinema. Bestiaries is based on found footage and on the how and why cinema has obsessively represented animals; Herbaria, on the other hand, is an observational documentary inside the Botanical Garden of Padua and Lapidaries is an industrial and emotional film on the transformation of stone into collective memory. A chorus of protagonists, through multifarious voices and sounds, portrays us and preserves our knowledge. Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari is a sentimental journey on culture, science, art of our old continent.