Valdagno, Arizona

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Valdagno, Arizona

original title:

Valdagno, Arizona

directed by:

production:

country:

Italy/USA

year:

2011

film run:

80'

format:

colour

status:

Ready (25/07/2011)

festivals & awards:

He is the son of one of Italy’s most famous industrialists, but Umberto Mazzotto chose music over the family business. After meeting Fabrizio De André when he was seventeen, he decided to become a singer-songwriter. He made his frist album in 1987 and took part in the Sanremo Music Festival with the single “Conta chi canta”. But even on the Ariston stage his story and his family were getting in the way and ended up raising unrealistic expectations. Pippo Baudo himself presents him to Sanremo’s audience by highlighting the significance of the Marzotto label, adding: “You know, I know your father, so…”
The career of singer-songwriter Marzotto is full of ups and downs. He made his second album a good eight years after his debut. In between, he embarked on a restless quest for an existential shore to really call his own.
On the dawn of his fifties, Umberto wakes up from a dream which he describes as such: “I see colours, I see all the animals with wings, I take a train which takes me to the sea and I see houses, skyscrapers, forests, the desert. The Navajo and the Apache are far off in the desert. The person waving to me to come closer might be Geronimo, but I will never know…”.
Umberto left for Arizona with no hesitation. He stayed there many months and met several native Americans who slowly become his new-found friends. This experience leads him to write new songs, in English, which tell of his encounter with this world. While waiting to record this new album, Umberto decided to ask for the passport for his new world and for his new audience by performing these songs in a big concert in Santa Fe, where he share a stage with his friends and most important native American musicians, amongst whom the now legendary marie Youngblood as well as the very young and talented Jana Mashonee. This was the end and the beginning of the adventure.