Sow The Wind / Semina il vento

Years after disappearing from her home village, 21-year-old agricultural student Nica (Yle Vianello) returns to a past under siege. Rendered lifeless by a plague of resistant beetles, her grandmother’s hundred-year-old olive grove stands barren. With no olives to harvest and with money running out, Nica’s father wants to cut it down but Nica wants to fight to preserve it.

is an understated drama which indirectly channels much of Paul Laverty’s excellent ‘Even The Rain’ (También la lluvia).

From its opening nighttime frames of creaking olive trees seemingly wailing in discontent, Italian drama ‘Sow The Wind / Semina il vento’ is suffused with palpable melancholia. Monosyllabic and withdrawn in the car that brings her to a past she ran out on, an excellent Yle Vianello brings genuine life to the role of Nica. With only childhood friend Paola to confide in (as played by Feliciana Sibilano), Nica is welcomed back into a family home shrouded by guilt and secrets. With unapologetically difficult ‘La Mezza Stagione (Late Season)’s’ Espedito Chionna as her father and Caterina Valente as Nica’s mother who is wedded to the shadows of her bedroom, there are many secrets to be revealed.

Beautifully shot and with an atmospherically rich soundtrack, ‘Sow The Wind / Semina il vento’ is an understated ecological drama which indirectly channels much of Paul Laverty’s excellent ‘‘Even The Rain’ (También la lluvia). Whilst the pacing and melodrama is definitely more fragmented and the emotional pacing of the film doesn’t always allow scenes to run into one another, there is no denying this movie’s genuine sense of presence.