THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN

2023. Feature documentary and expanded cinema. 

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An Acteon production in collaboration with Jolefilm

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Like the characters in Thomas Mann's novel that gives the film its title, in the strange suspended time of the sanitary confinement of these days, twenty-five people locked in their homes reflect on their lives, on the society in which they live, on the mutations of the world and its environment, on their desires: workers, caretakers, teachers, businessmen, philosophers, students, retirees... Most - though not all - are people who have some connection with the others participants: there are three family nuclei, friends and neighbors; some have working relationships. These bonds are also the visual and spoken matter of the film, and they tint the reflections of a particular humanity : the one of the society of the second decade of the 21st century.

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The Magic Mountain is a fresco of the tensions that cross Europe nowadays. It is made up of shoots filmed with cameras and cell phones by the participants themselves, who agreed to put themselves in the position of "filmmakers" and "camera operators", and to follow the director's indications, Claudio Zulian. The images are the result of a patient work of shaping, through long dialogues about the intentions, the possibilities, the right moment of the shootings. In this strange period, there was no other way to do it. However, there is a great advantage in this work system: we get an intimacy with people that no other film crew  could have achieved. 

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The Magic Mountain is a film that explores the doubts, fears and hopes of a group of citizens in a decade that has started dramatically.

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Awards

 - Award to the director ¨Testimonio de nuestro tiempo¨, Gala de la cultura of Campodarsego 2023.

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