Best Video
SARDU SHEARING by Norma Colombero
Biographical note of the authors
She is author of films and documentaries. A version of her documentary on sheep-shearing and on the shearing traditions in Sardinia, co-directed with Piero Giordano, has been recently acquired by RAI radio-television.
Synopsis
Ignazio is a young Sardinian shearer, who has abandoned the traditional working techniques based on the use of pruning-shears and has migrated abroad to apprehend the use of modern tools and techniques. In the island he works together with foreign seasonal workers. Nowadays the sheep-shearers have formed an international community of skilled professionals who move from nation to nation, shearing thousands of sheeps recurring to modern methodologies. Their job is rich of satisfaction though it is highly impacting on their private lives.
Judgement
This film evokes the roots of one of the oldest trades in human work, a manual activity that, despite its millenary history, remains unfamiliar to the majority of people. Contrarily to the common sense, shearing requires skills and competences of a high profile so that it can be stated that this job is based on a top-level trait of professionalism. Sheep shearers form a community of individuals coming from different nations and disanchored from a specific state or place, individuals who are ready to move from a countryside to another countryside in order to exert their profession.