PRODUCTIONS: AS IN A MIRROR

DIRECTOR

PRODUCER

DURATION

VERSIONS

FORMAT

D. Cini, G. Pancaldi, A. D'Onofrio

SD Cinematografica

30'

16 mm

Face to face and looking very much alike, the male and the female grebe imitate each other's movements in an elegant "mirror" dance. After many years absence, the great crested grebe has returned to live among the reed thickets of Lake Annone, a small body of water lost in the hill of Brianza in Italy. As soon as the pollution in the water and hunting diminished, the first pairs began colonizing the area once again. The documentary tells the story of their return.
Grebes are classified by ornithologists are "short-distance migrants" because of the brief journey they make to reach their winter quarters.
The "long-distance migrants" are much more tenacious flyers and among these is the white stork that flies over 6,000 miles.
According to a famous story, the stork places infants in the cabbage patch at night. In an effort to document this unusual behavior, we lay in wait for many long nights but, to tell the truth, we had no success. Maybe storks do not place infants there anymore out of revenge for the countless bulletts shot at them once they crossed the Italian border. Times have changed now and many people are working to persuade the storks to return.