Documentary, more than any other medium, embraces, analyses and contextualises events in this world that we all inhabit. Which is why documentary is the perfect medium for Stonebreakers, Valerio Ciriaci’s project about the tearing down of historical monuments within a very contemporary US. Business Doc Europe chisels away at the director.
It all started with Christopher Columbus, of course. At least it did for director Valerio Ciriaci three years ago when looking to determine the legacy of the Italian explorer. He was especially interested in studying “the very strong relationship now between the Columbus symbol and/Italian American identity.”
But then Covid intervened, people stayed at home and worried for their personal safety. Within this new reality, who could ever be interested in statues? “We decided to put the whole thing on the back burner…We were kind of telling ourselves, this isn’t really an issue that’s very timely or very urgent with everything that’s going on,” Ciriaci comments.
But then George Floyd was murdered, BLM protests erupted across the US (and around the globe), and suddenly Columbus statues were being torn down wholesale. “So we told ourselves, well, maybe actually this [subject] is suddenly very, very important again,” continues director Ciriaci.
“The fact that Columbus had been so quickly associated by protestors and activists with perhaps more explicit symbols of anti-black racism in the United States such as Confederate monuments, the way that these symbols were being equated in the conversation made us realize that we also needed to extend the scope of our project to discuss not only Columbus, but other instances of memorialization in the US and really reflect in general about what it means to build monuments,” he tells BDE.
More than that, the film is about “the meaning of memorialization and how history can inflame present-day political action.”
Produced by Isaak Liptzin of Awen Films, the 90-minute project’s approximate budget is €175,000, with €46.500 already sourced. At MIA Liptzin and Ciriaci are looking to boost coffers via co-production deals and pre-sales, as well pique festival and sales interest.
The film notes stress how the filmmakers seek “to explore the shifting landscapes of historical memory in a time of upheaval and uncertainty. Across the country, activists, researchers, and artists call into question the narratives carved into the stone of the nation’s most famous symbols. As the dust settles, space opens up to reclaim long-neglected sites of memory and create new forms of memorialization. Unfolding as a broad mosaic of American memories and amnesias,Stonebreakers bears witness to an exceptional season of continuing collisions between history and present.”
Photography is more or less completed on the project. “Of course, the main bulk of editing and post-production is still in the future,” says Ciriaci. “But we think it’s the urgent topic, so it is important to get it out there as soon as possible. Our goal at this point would be to basically edit in November and December and [finish] the rough cut…We also have a lot of markets and meetings with new partners who may come in, and depending on how that goes, it may end up being a longer process. But either way our ideal release window would be probably during the summer of 2022.”
