ANIME GALLEGGIANTI

Hybrid fiction, fantasy, 71 mins

World premier at Alice nella città Panorama Italia Fuori Concorso, Festa del Cinema di Roma

SYNOPSIS

Inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Wandering Souls is a journey through the mystical land of Sardinia. This hybrid film mixes visual and musical ethnography with classical mythology, documentary methods with fantasy. The intertwined destinies of Ovid’s characters culminate during the autochthonous carnival, whose rites mark the cyclical nature of life and death.

Wandering Souls reinterprets the stories of the most intriguing characters of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, including Persephone, Arachne, Callisto, Europa, Daphne and Orpheus. The transformations of forms into new bodies are narrated by the Parca who cuts the thread of life. These episodes are interwoven and tied together by the presence of the philosopher Pythagoras, who accompanies us on a journey from the origins of the world to the present day.

The mythological tales are reinvented through Sardinian tradition and culture. A hybrid experiment between reality and imagination, the film is also the result of a close collaboration with artisans, musicians and local inhabitants. The metamorphoses culminate in the carnival ritual, symbolized by the island’s archaic masks, neither human nor animal, but almost divine figures that visually transcend the boundaries of the natural world.

Embracing a poetic, post-humanist and non-anthropocentric vision, the film places nature in the foreground. It aims to make the invisible visible, and reveal the eternal transmigration of souls.

Click here to watch the: TRAILER

Click here to download the PRESS KIT by Pathos Distribution

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

A hybrid experiment between reality and imagination, this way of storytelling is also an exploration of a culture, in close collaboration with local farmers, artisans and creators to engage with the traditions they perpetuate.

Anime galleggianti likewise aims to reconnect with the land, participate in ancient rituals, and explore a spirituality with Mother Nature. Embracing a poetic, post-humanist, and non-anthropocentric vision of cinema that places the natural world in the foreground, filming animals and plants as protagonists in their own right with equal agency. The film strives to make visible the invisible and to reveal the spirit and essence of things through the idea of the soul as described by Ovid’s Pythagoras.

INFO

Completion date: September 2024

FESTIVALS:

World premier: Alice nella città – Panorama Italia – Fuori Concorso

Trieste Film Festival – Premio Corso Salani

Image Ouverte, Paris

IsReal, Nuoro Sardegna

Impruneta Film Festival, Tuscany

Social World Film Festival, Vico Esquense

Garofano Rosso, Abruzzo

Matera Film Festival, Basilicata

Incanto Film Festival, Pesaro

Il Cinema è Donna RASSEGNA AGNÈS, CasaCinema Napoli

Terrae Film Fest, Civitavecchia

AWARDS:

Best Feature Film at Garofano Rosso, Abruzzo, September 2025.

Pasolini Prize, Fondazione BINI, Matera Film Festival, September 2025.

Honorable Mention at Image Ouverte Festival in Paris, April 2025.

Selected by Oubliette Magazine as best film in the section Premio Corso Salani of the Trieste Film Festival, January 2025.

Bellaria Film Festival: (in)emergenza post-production prize for the color grading at Cineporto dell’Emilia Romagna

Participated in: Itineranze Doc, This Is It When East Meets West Coproduction Forum

Produced by: anima films

Executive producer: Image Hunters

Supported by: Fondazione Sardegna Film Commission

Distribution: Pathos Distribution

MASTERCLASSES:

Terrae Film Festival, Civitavecchia 2025 – masterclass with the local community

Masterclass Cinema Cetona, Tuscany 2025 – masterclass with screenwriting students selected for the Premio Maccari contest

Università di Bologna, Bologna 2025 – Keynote speech at the Canadian Association of Italian Studies Annual Conference.

Accademia delle Belle Arti, Verona 2025 – Presented and discussed Anime galleggianti, La Visita, and La Grande Quercia with Irene Dorigotti’s Anthropology class

Sapienza Facoltà delle Lettere e Filosofia, Roma 2025 – Analyzed passages from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and compared the scenes in my film Anime galleggianti in Francesco Ursini’s Philology course.