Event introduced by Gian Luca Farinelli and Isabella Rossellini
ANIMALS DISTRACT ME
When the Discovery Channel asked me for a fifty-minute documentary, I thought I’d recount a typical day in my life: I get up, I leave the house, I go to work as a model… however, while walking down the street I get distracted by the pigeons and start telling a story about them. When I arrive to the set, an ant captures my attention and I start talking about ants… Basically, it’s the story of my day, with animals; they distract me, because they interest me. I’m fascinated by insects: they are Martians, UFOs, but they have always lived among us. They lead crazy and very bizarre lives. For example, spiders. Whenever Sundance TV asks me for ten shorts, I might have eight in mind, and for the last two I’ll say: “Let’s take a look at spiders”, because there’s always something interesting to say about them. I love dogs. Of all animals, dogs were the first to be domesticated, 15-20 thousand years ago, while the other animals – sheep and hens – were domesticated along with the advent of agriculture, approximately 8-10 thousand years ago. I feel that difference. I feel that I share a longer history with dogs than with sheep and goats. And although I have created a farm so I can be close to all animals, dogs continue to be my best friends.
DIRECTOR: Isabella Rossellini
NATION: USA
YEAR: 2013
RUNTIME: 48′
CAST: Isabella Rossellini, Mario Batali, Fabrizio Ferri, André Leon Talley, Campbell Scott, Grant Schaffer
MAMMAS
The subject matter for this series derived from my studies in ethology. At university, I realised that the study of animals has always concentrated more on hunting strategies than hierarchical organisation, and no one really paid any attention to the maternal instinct until a group of women biologists arrived on the scene and called it into question, contesting the use of the word “inevitable”. In fact, in the animal kingdom, some mothers eat their children, just as some children eat their mothers. That’s what gave me the idea to make a series based on a doubt: the possibility that maternal instinct, which we think we share with all animal species, may not be what we think it is… because nature remains a mystery. We are still unable to define it with precision, nor have we discovered absolute principles that allow us to describe and understand it.
DIRECTOR: Isabella Rossellini
NATION: United States, France, Germany
YEAR: 2013
RUNTIME: 23′
DARWIN, WHAT?
Isabella Rossellini is in quarantine due to the Coronavirus. She decides it’s the right time to read all of Charles Darwin’s books, but the writing is heavy and she falls asleep while reading. Darwin’s ghost appears in her dream. He wants to talk about the expression of emotions, because Isabella is an actress. Darwin explains that in his book The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, he presents his hypothesis that basic expressions – just like bones or the famous beaks of his finches – are also shaped by evolution.
DIRECTOR: Isabella Rossellini, Paul David Magid
NATION: Greece
YEAR: 2020
RUNTIME: 9′
Original version with subtitles