13th T H E S S A L O N IK I IN T E R N A T IO ...

P
History & Politics
THE PEASANT AND THE PRIEST
Esther Podemski
The Peasant and the Priest tells the story of two Italian men in their eighties whose ways
of life have survived from medieval Italy to the present. Sergio, a Tuscan sharecropper, uses
ancient farming methods that have become overshadowed by corporate agriculture. Father
Oreste fights the tide of sexual slavery, which grows each day as more and more
women from Africa and Europe are forced into prostitution in Italy. Each man tries to make
his contribution to a globalized world that moves relentlessly and carelessly forward.
Podemski’s film offers a re-reading of this much-loved region, a landscape shaped and continually
transformed by co-existing extremes of human labor, cultivation, and exploitation.
The point of departure for exploring these parallel lives is a 14th-century fresco, The Allegory
of Good and Bad Government, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. The mural tells a timeless, cautionary
tale of the struggles necessary to establish and maintain social justice.
Running time: 47΄
Year of production: 2010
Production Company: Always at Sea Productions
Production Contact Person: Esther Podemski
Sales Company: Always at Sea Productions
Sales Contact Person: Esther Podemski
128 St Marks Avenue, #2
Brooklyn NY 11217 USA
T. +1 718 857 8375
F. +1 718 753 8789
epodemski@verizon.net
400
112
ITALY - USA
1 3 t h T h e s s a l o n i k i D o c u m e n t a r y F e s t i v a l