| Italy – Don Bosco at Montecitorio 200 years after his birth |
| Italy – Centenary of the "Cross of the Seas": bearers of the cross of Christ to the ends of the Earth |
(ANS - Punta Arenas) - The Chilean newspaper La Prensa Austral in its edition of Tuesday 26 November published an article about the film South of the South, an Italian production by Salvatore Metastasio scripted by Nicola Bottiglieri. The film commemorates the centenary of the first Cross of the Seas erected at Cape Froward by a Uruguayan Salesian priest, Fr Luis Hector Sallaberry.
Mr. Bottiglieri attended the premiere of the film at the Alejandro Ponticas Kairis auditorium in Mop, where the participants attended the screening of the film. It sets out to the relationship between science and religion.
There are two characters, a young man who wants to retrace the journey of Darwin, and another older man who is more interested in the work of the Salesians. They meet unexpectedly and talk about what they have done and the places they have visited. The younger man has been to Darwin, the Beagle Channel, the Yaganes. The other has seen the entrance to the Straits of Magellan and Pigafetta, and was now living in San Gregorio. The two met at Fuerte Bulnes, where they decided to go together to the cross. “These two characters, symbols of science and faith, are shown walking side by side,” said the scriptwriter, who described the film as "a road movie".
Mr. Bottiglieri was attracted by the story of Fr Albert de Agostini and already knew the history of Cape Froward, but he was struck by it again while working on the film. "Fr Sallaberry erected the cross in 1913 for two reasons: firstly, to fulfil the Gospel mandate to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, and then because 1913 was the 1,600th anniversary of the Edict of Constantine which made Christianity the state religion of the Empire. This theme links Froward with Milan and Rome, and with Jerusalem. The story of that Cross takes us on a journey through history and geography. I found Fr de Agostini a visionary man, a dreamer, the kind that looks at the best of everything."
The film took forty days to shoot, between Cape Froward, Navarino Island, Puerto Williams, Ushuaia and Rio Grande, and about four months for the installation and music. In all this, the film had the support of Don Bosco Missions and of the Salesians of Punta Arenas and the Maggiorino Borgatello Museum.
After the launch in Punta Arenas, South of the South will be shown at festivals in Turin, Rome and Venice, and in Santiago.
Published 28/11/2013
