"To my father, who, when I was a child, used to tell me about the war in which he fought".

To commemorate the centenary of the First World War (1914-18), Ermanno Olmi’s film Torneranno i Prati (Greenery will Bloom Again) will be screened simultaneously in over 120 locations worldwide on the 4th of November, 2014, precisely 100 years after the signing of the armistice which ended the Great War.
The film revisits the famous battle of Asiago, fought between Austrian and Italian forces on the Alpine Front. The scene takes place during a single night in 1917, on the Italian Northeastern Front. The story that develops, based on real events, is unpredictable: it shows the long idle moments of the war, where, possessed by fear, at times one can only sing. The peaceful scenery of the snowy mountains becomes a place of death and sorrow.
Recalling his father’s tales of having lived through the war – the initial youthful enthusiasm for heroism and glory, and later, the seemingly endless waiting, punctuated by unimaginable terror – Olmi tells of his father’s tears when remembering his fellow soldiers. “No one who lived through the First World War is left now”, says Olmi, “and no one else will be able to bear witness with his own voice to all the pain and suffering caused by that carnage. But written testimonies survive”.
With his latest work, the director sends out a call for peace to all those nations which, for one reason or another, were once players in an episode of history which marked humanity forever, as well as those which still suffer the scourge of war today.
 
Information Premiere
Date: Tuesday, November 04, 2014
Location: over 120 Italiano Istitute of culture (look at the map).
Organized by: Office of the Prime Minister Of Italy, Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, Cinemaundici, Ipotesi Cinema, Rai Cinema
In collaboration with: Consulate General of Italy in San Francisco; Italian Cultural Institute Of San Francisco; Sf State University Italian Programme