Ghiro Ghiro Tondo

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Ghiro Ghiro Tondo

original title:

Ghiro Ghiro Tondo

country:

Italy

year:

2007

film run:

60'

format:

colour

status:

Ready (09/02/2007)

festivals & awards:

A collection of children’s toys made of different materials: wood, tin, paper, fabric, chalk, celluloid and wax. The film spans the period from the end of the First World War up to the 1950s. Their provenance: all the objects were found in the Dolomites “A region situated on that white patch on the sacred map of the world where a China made of porcelain meets under a leaden sky the rocks of the Dolomites of an artificial-looking red” (T.W. Adorno) in a village which, up until the First World War, was part of Austria. The places these objects were collected from were Eastern Europe, Northern Italy, Russia and Japan. The character of these objects from different regions is most prominent. The collection is made up of different categories: human, animal and vegetable in a range of various small sizes. The intrinsic qualities of these objects reflect the historical period between Facism and Nazism and the post-war era. The images are seen through a magnifying glass. Through these shrunken objects there emerge the ’workings’ not just of a rural, peasant world, a world of agricultural labour linked with animals and the woods, but also one of domestic chores linked to the home and its spaces, traditional crafts and shops. There are also elements of folklore and popular and religious customs. A catalogue of 10,000 shabby toys that have survived childhoods shattered by two World Wars; miniaturisation in humble materials; menacing shadows of Fascism and Nazism. ROBERTO: Rome, Berlin, Tokyo.