“When you put fragments together and look at them all at once, something happens. A story comes to life.” These are the moving words of Kasia Smutniak, who over the past few months has gradually revealed snippets of her latest project on social media. It’s a project that can’t simply be defined as just that, given its emotional significance and the fact that it’s about her own life. It’s called “MUSTANG,” Kasia Smutniak’s new documentary film, which will be presented in competition in the Progressive Cinema section at the 21st edition of the Rome Film Festival. With “MUSTANG,” Kasia Smutniak returns behind the camera following “MUR,” winner of the 2024 Nastro d’Argento for Documentary in the Cinema del Reale category.
An intimate and previously unpublished account that stems from the first journey undertaken in 2003 with Pietro Taricone to the remote region of Mustang and chronicles more than twenty years of life. A promise at the edge of the world that spans time and generations, weaving through love, loss, and memory, in search of what remains when everything changes. “MUSTANG is the story of many lives that meet, part ways, and return. Of what remains and what changes. I can’t wait to share it with you,” she wrote recently, tying together all the details revealed over the past few weeks.
The film was written by Kasia Smutniak and Marella Bombini. It is a Fandango production in association with Luce Cinecittà, with the contribution of the Pietro Taricone Association, thanks to the support of the Italian Buddhist Union, and is produced by Domenico Procacci, Laura Paolucci, and Kasia Smutniak.
At the heart of the story are images from the trip Kasia and Pietro took in 2003, when they had only recently met and set off for Mustang with backpacks and a small video camera. That place, suspended in time, where there aren’t even any roads, became a part of them, and there they made a promise to each other: to return one day and do something to protect that culture. But the course of events suddenly changed, and they would never return there together. Many years later, their daughter Sophie rediscovers the footage from that first trip and from the trips her mother later took with her when she was a child.
It is during this journey that she meets a special woman, Kunzom, and together with her, she fulfills a promise made long ago: to build a school that allows the children of that region to continue their education without having to leave their families. Through Sophie’s voice, the story traces more than twenty years of life, weaving together personal memories and collective history on a journey that spans time and generations, searching for what remains when everything is transformed into that ceaseless flow that in Mustang they call Samsara.
“When you put fragments together and look at them all at once, something happens. A story comes to life.” These are the moving words of Kasia Smutniak, who has been gradually revealing snippets of her latest project on social media over the past few months. It cannot simply be defined as just that, given its emotional significance and the fact that it concerns her own life. It’s called “MUSTANG,” Kasia Smutniak’s new documentary film, which will be presented in competition in the Progressive Cinema section at the 21st edition of the Rome Film Festival. With “MUSTANG,” Kasia Smutniak returns behind the camera following “MUR,” winner of the 2024 Nastro d’Argento for Documentary in the Cinema del Reale category.
An intimate and previously unpublished account that stems from the first journey undertaken in 2003 with Pietro Taricone to the remote region of Mustang and chronicles more than twenty years of life. A promise at the edge of the world that spans time and generations, weaving through love, loss, and memory, in search of what remains when everything changes. “MUSTANG is the story of many lives that meet, part ways, and return. Of what remains and what changes. I can’t wait to share it with you,” she wrote recently, tying together all the details revealed over the past few weeks.
The film was written by Kasia Smutniak and Marella Bombini. It is a Fandango production in association with Luce Cinecittà, with the contribution of the Pietro Taricone Association, thanks to the support of the Italian Buddhist Union, and is produced by Domenico Procacci, Laura Paolucci, and Kasia Smutniak.
At the heart of the story are images from the trip Kasia and Pietro took in 2003, when they had only recently met and set off for Mustang with backpacks and a small video camera. That place, suspended in time, where there aren’t even any roads, became a part of them, and there they made a promise to each other: to return one day and do something to protect that culture. But the course of events suddenly changed, and they would never return there together. Many years later, their daughter Sophie rediscovers the footage from that first trip and from the trips her mother later took with her when she was a child.
It is during this journey that she meets a special woman, Kunzom, and together with her, she fulfills a promise made long ago: to build a school that allows the children of that region to continue their education without having to leave their families. Through Sophie’s voice, the story traces more than twenty years of life, weaving together personal memories and collective history on a journey that spans time and generations, searching for what remains when everything is transformed into that ceaseless flow that in Mustang they call Samsara.
[📸 Courtesy of Fosforo Press]
