Director's Notes

They say that when the Americans dropped the nuclear device on the city of Hiroshima, killing hundreds of thousands of people, the bodies of those people instantly dissolved under the explosive impact, but their shadows remained, as entities in their own right, projected on the walls of the half-collapsed buildings. But if the shadow uprooted from the body were to become a separate entity, retaining a shadowy memory of that body that was no longer beside it, that body would also lose consistency, would itself become a fragile, weak, spectral entity.This is what happens to the young Peter Schlemihl: his shadow is ceded in exchange for unlimited wealth, in a barter that seems attractive to him. The story of Peter Schlemihl, inspired by Adelbert von Chamisso's short story The Marvellous Story of Peter Schlemihl, is one of those existences that unfold in the toil of life as if they were always suspended, waiting for some revelation that, however, is always late in coming. Peter carries within him a kind of innocence, his gaze belongs to those who cannot reconcile themselves with the uniforming rules of society. Peter's story speaks of that harsh and difficult passage from youth to adulthood, when hope for the future clashes with the ruthlessness of the present. Faced with so many doors slammed in his face, Peter agrees to jump evenly up the existential slope in front of him in order to suddenly enter the big world he believes he is entitled to, a shortcut that in time turns out to be a trap and that will mark the rest of his life. The Lost Shadow of Peter Schlemihl is a show where even the languages work on the contrasts of light and shadow. Light becomes sound and vice versa, their metamorphosis is at one with the narrated words, everything devilishly intertwines, undermining the linearity of the story. A score of sounds intertwines with the narrator's voice, creating a continuous atmosphere of suspension, moving the spectator's eye towards the ear, thus prompting him to “imagine while listening”.

Marco Baliani