Sunday 24 December, at 12:52 on Tv2000, the documentary 'God is not alone - The culture and art of the nativity scene' will be broadcast.
Written by Nicola Barile and Giovanni Parisi and directed by Giovanni Calvino and Sara Saetta, the documentary celebrates the eight hundredth anniversary of the first nativity scene desired by Saint Francis of Assisi in Greccio on Christmas night 1123.
The documentary features the extraordinary participation of Peppe Barra historical interpreter of the character Razzullo in the Cantata dei Pastori, who together with the stories of theologians, anthropologists and leading experts in Neapolitan nativity scene art, provides the spectator with a complete picture of the Christian tradition of reproducing the Nativity.
In 52 minutes, the evolution of the nativity scene is told, from the poor and sparse representation desired by Saint Francis, to a crowded and noisy place in eighteenth-century Naples. In the city where religion and superstition, devotion and paganism coexist, the great tradition of the Neapolitan nativity scene was born. Here, the solitude of Jesus' birth is transported to the contemporary world and, since then, in the nativity scene God is no longer alone. A year-long filming job that saw the crew move around Italy, from the symbolic places of the Franciscan tradition in Greccio to the rooms of the Museum of San Martino, where the shepherds of the Cuciniello collection are kept.
The film, as stated in the press release that presents it, does not stop only at the historical tradition, recounted in the interviews of Marino Niola, Elisabetta Moro, Francesco Delizia, Ileana Creazzo, Father Domenico Lassandro, and the late maestro Antonio Lebro, but manages to tell the contemporaneity of the new Neapolitan artistic schools including that of the fabulous nativity scene by the Scuotto brothers. With the original music of Valerio Minicillo and the photography of Davide Aronica and Bruno Cirillo, God is not alone, produced by Giovanni Parisi and Giovanni Calvino for TILE Storytellers, made use of the contribution of the Film Commission Regione Campania and the national rules for the Tax Credit desired by the MiC – Ministry of Culture.
Article published on 18 December 2023 - 16:21
