Diodato sings ‘La mia terra’ for Riondino’s film

2023-10-21 21:07:33

Time.news – Fantastic couple Michele Riondino and Diodato, both from Taranto, both committed to saving the city from the environmental disaster created by Ilva. Today Riondino brings his debut film as a director to the Rome Film Festival‘Palazzina Laf’, in which he talks about a less well-known aspect of the cursed steelworks, that of the company whose top management, the first in Italy, were convicted of mobbing in 1997 when this form of psychological torture didn’t even have a name.

Riondino is an actor, screenwriter (with Maurizio Braucci) and director, while Diodato is the author of the song which can be heard while the credits roll with real images of the protagonists of that film season at Ilva, ‘My land’ (Music Union Srl – Gli Alberi Srl – Carosello Records). In the press conference the Apulian singer-songwriter mentioned the song.

A text which, Riondino explained, “I wanted to leave at the end as a sort of epilogue to this film. ‘My land’ – said the director – is a declaration of love for Taranto and it had to be accompanied by real, true images and show the transition from 1997 to today. Her piece is for today.”

In the morning, during a small meeting with journalists, Diodato himself had explained: “Michele and I have been brothers for some years, due to a sort of destiny that binds us to our land. When I learned that he was working on his first film as director – he said – I took the liberty of proposing a collaboration to him because I felt it could be a nice way to tell something together.

‘My land’ is a song that starts from the myth of the foundation of Taranto, from the king of the Parthenians who is exiled from Sparta to whom the oracle says: you will find your land when you see it raining with a clear sky. Having arrived after much wandering in the port of Taranto – he explained – the king falls asleep on his wife’s legs and the latter, thinking back to everything they had been through, begins to cry. He then wakes up with these tears that he confuses with the rain and, looking at the clear sky, he thinks he has found his homeland. These tears out of the blue – Diodato said again – it’s a bit as if they had left a mark on us. AND the fate to which we Tarantinos seem to be condemned. But for a few years there has been a sort of revolution in our city and it owes a lot to Michele’s commitment. And in this song I wanted to unite the two worlds – he further explained – the myth of the foundation and what happened and continues to happen in Taranto. In the song I repeat the word love several times because it is based on that, on love for a land that has been contaminated by wicked choices made in the past. But those who love it – he concluded – retain within themselves the hope for a better future for which, however, we must fight.”