The clump (1970)

A man walks through the Salento countryside. He holds a glass jar in his hand. Empty. Fields of centuries-old olive trees exterminated by the Xylella fastidiosa bacterium parade past. The man walks towards his grandfather’s olive grove. His destiny is to return to the places of his adolescence. Strange plant shapes appear in the countryside. The man with the jar crosses the valley. He feels he is being watched. Fauns threaten him or perhaps protect him. The man must perform his ritual, a clump of earth – la paddotta - awaits him on the bank of a stream. In an eternal present, everything begins again and is fulfilled in every single moment.