Venice 2013

with Jean Christophe Folly, Matteo Marchel, Anita Caprioli, Peter Mitterrutzner, Giuseppe Battiston

produced by Jolefilm with Rai Cinema

in collaboration with Trentino Film Commission and Trentino Marketing Spa

in association with Tasci srl, Davide Orsoni

with the support of Direzione Generale per il Cinema - MiBAC

Everybody in the valley is waiting for the first snow. It will change all colors, all shapes, all outlines. But Dani has never seen the snow. Dani was born in Togo and arrived in Italy as a refugee from the war in Libya. He was taken in by a refugee home on Pergine, a small village in the mountains of Trentino, at the foot of the Mocheni Valley. He has a one-year-old daughter who he is unable to care for. There is something that blocks him. A deep hurt.

Dani is invited to work in the workshop of Pietro, an old carpenter and beekeeper from the Mocheni Valley who lives on a mountain farm with his daughter-in-law Elisa and his grandson Michele, a boy aged ten whose fitfulness strikes Dani. Michele’s father has died a short time ago, leaving a big hole in the young boy’s life. Michele’s relationship with his mother is tense and conflicted. For support and friendship, he turns to his uncle Fabio. Sooner or later the snow will arrive, and there is not much time to repair the beehives and collect firewood. It is a short and necessary time span that allows pain and silences to turn into occasions for understanding and knowing. It is a time to let the leaves, the trees and the forests prepare themselves for change.

In this time and in these woods, before the snow, Dani and Michele can learn to listen to each other.