On a school trip to Central Italy in April 2014, I met Italian film director Paolo Bianchini, who together with Paola Rota, create and produce artistic, meaningful films full of social value with their enterprise, Alveare Cinema. These films of educational value and depth can be viewed by young and old alike.
I had read about the film Il Sole Dentro released in 2012, known in the English-speaking world as Bright Flight. Paolo Bianchini’s interest in the storyline originated from the 1999 tragedy of Yaguine and Fode. The two West African youths made a stowaway flight in a jet’s cargo hold to deliver their written plea for economic assistance to the Ministers of the EU in Brussels, Belgium. They arrived DOA (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-mar-19-mn-10355-story.html) and Bianchini vowed they would not have died in vain. Alveare Cinema’s film has circled the globe, not as a commercial, for-profit film, but as a lesson in humanity.
From projects like those of SOS Scuola ,the renovating of schools and the consequential edification of their communities, to educational festivals for children’s production of film themes of respect for the Earth, its cultivation, and our environment, Alveare Cinema has remained on the periphery of profitable popular culture, but with dedication to more than box office numbers. Today more than ever, their commitment to the integrity and guiding principles necessary and craved in this chaotic world inspires many who know about them. It seems much easier to ride the wave of popularity and commercial profit than to pursue political, ideological, national, or international independence and uphold the UN International Declaration of Human rights, justice, equality, to assist the needy and the suffering through its projects and Charter of Values. But yesterday….
Paolo shared information on a recent event taking place in the Italian Embassy in Tehran, Iran. The seventh and final in a series of cultural presentations is titled, “Vincenzo Bianchini. The Humanist and the Artist” in a program “#From_Tehran_to_Rome.: A Journey through Art.”
This episode focuses on the life and work of Paolo’s father, Vincenzo, an Italian doctor, poet and artist, who spent 24 years of his life in Iran between the 1950s and the 1970s. During his career, he also worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Ethiopia medically serving the poor and marginalized, continuing to write, draw, paint, and create sculptures from found materials. His artwork will be kept in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and will give testimony to a man who brought care and inclusion to others through his humanist views in medicine, literature, and fine arts.
I often wondered how the apparent unassuming nature of Paolo Bianchini managed in a fast-paced, glitzy, and often cut-throat world of television and cinema. The story of Dr. Vincenzo Bianchini and his life’s dedication to needs greater than himself, while allowing his creative spirit to rise in the process makes the answer clear. Whether it be Nature or Nurture or a combination of both, the humanist values of Love for others we encounter that move our spirits to a higher good have a way of simplifying the complicated.
In the words of Viktor Frankel, “Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire.”.
” Alveare Cinema, this social experiment, welcomes anyone who wishes to belong to the human community that recognizes ourselves in the “other”… bound by love!”
Please contact: info@alvearecinema.it
