The Shape of Words

Alessio Pizzicanella

Thursday, 27 october 2022

by Alessio Pizzicannella

A movie starts with a script, a story and stories need to be sought out, pursued or if you're lucky, picked up and smoothed over when you stumble upon them.

Lake Lugano

So many stories, one sitting next to the other, were told by those who boarded a boat on Lake Ceresio to go to work where the roads still did not reach. The boats were not yet simple entertainment, except perhaps for some, the majority instead, divided by classes, sailed for necessity and not yet for tourism.

They didn't just carry goods, but new ideas, dreams of those who travelled, and opportunities for those who made them welcome. All sorts of stories continued to arrive, if you live on the shores of a lake they can come from afar, as yet unheard and surprising, or familiar and persuasive.

Narrow and long, Lake Maggiore seems like a perfect highway ready to receive or greet people from all walks of life. It's hard to imagine boundaries where the waters themselves, like the stories they carry, contaminate each other and the currents and storms invite, guide and divert premeditated routes.

Navigation Lake Lugano

It starts with a script but then it’s the places that suggest new ideas, their shapes that mould the stories, just as the mountains contain the lake inviting its waters to align with the coast.

Morcote

I rowed all night. Finally my hands were so sore I could hardly close them over the oars… Rowing a while, then resting and holding the oars so that the wind struck the blades…The wind was down or we were protected by mountains that bounded the curve the lake had made… A motor boat chugging out on the lake…We could see the tops of the white-caps going away from us and up the lake…I pulled hard on the left oar and came close, then straightened out when we were close to the quay…I pulled in the oars, took hold of an iron ring, stepped up on the wet stone and was in Switzerland.

- A Farewell to Arms by E. Hemingway

Brissago Islands

Of the Brissago islands, who knows what stimulated the imagination and added pages in James Joyce's Ulysse? How much of Lugano is in the works of Hermann Hesse? It is the scents that guide the thoughts and pen of the writers, the colours that suggest different moods to the directors.

Places change the narrative of those who arrive so much that they ignite the imagination of those who dream of leaving to pursue their own.

Ascona

Alessio Pizzicannella

Alessio Pizzicannella is a screenwriter and director. After 25 years of photography between England and Italy, in 2012 he moved to Locarno where he made a short film and recently “Dawn Chorus”, his first feature film. The release of his first novel is scheduled for summer 2021.

Website: www.alessiopizzicannella.com

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