Banditi a Orgosolo

The film was a great success at the Venice Film Festival in 1961, where it won, among other things, the award for Best Debut. It is only a pity that the author made another film, six years later, which met with a less enthusiastic reception, and in the 1970s he withdrew completely from filmmaking. Bandits of Orgosolo carries a strong neorealist trace both in terms of the story - the harsh life of the poor Sardinians filled with hard work and the struggle to survive with very little, to pay off debts, etc., as well as in terms of form, wherein lies perhaps the biggest positive of the film. The breathtaking shots of the island mountains, beautifully composed and captured in exteriors and natural light (handled by the director himself), balance out the relatively straightforward and therefore less interesting story. De Seta himself created a series of documentaries about the lives of the poor inhabitants of Italy in the 1950s, and the film is an obvious extension of this interest into the realm of feature film. Local residents also act in the film. (15.05.2014)