Davide Battistella, Neighborhood FilmMaker, on Paintings and Innocents in Florence

Davide Battistella, Neighborhood FilmMaker, on Paintings and Innocents in Florence

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Brie Clayton February 16, 2021

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His independent documentary, The Innocents of Florence: The Quest to Save 600,000 Children , is available on exclusively on Prime Video.

In Florence, Italy, all the important things are taken very slow. Florentines are very very discerning, says Davide, They test, research and review. It's the way things are just done in Italy. It took me many years coming from North America to get used to that kind of thing. According to Davide Battistella, that is the vibe of the Florentine masters. I've learned living and working here, things take a lot of time.

data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050525/IOF_ %A92019_Firenze08_1200-1024x540.jpg alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2403878/>Emigrating from Canada, Davide Battistella had to first absorb Florence itself before picking up the measured lifestyle that would allow his newest documentary to follow the restoration of Madonna degli Innocenti, a figure painted in 1446 for Florence's Institute of the Innocenti.

My first four or five months here I wasn't able to take a decent photograph, Davide recalls. I literally couldn't get a good picture of anything I looked at, until I started to find the right point where the image would fall into the math of the lens, and the place I was standing, and the perspective of the imagery. I think it has something to do with mathematics. Everything was done in the golden ratio. The people who were raised here and see all the history around them, it's literally the mathematics of the golden ratio that you're living in and walking through.

data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050143/IOF_ %A92019_innocnetni_exterior05_1200-1024x540.jpg alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2403862/>Neighborhood Cinematographer

After viewing The Innocents of Florence myself, I decided to set more of my own time aside to get to know what Battistella had truly uncovered while witnessing the restoration of the Madonna painting. Instantly I could see that both Davide and the city of Florence had patience in common.

Davide had developed his own methodical habit of packing a RED camera on his bicycle everywhere he went. It began six years back when he would record artisans around Florence in the process of their craft. When restorationist Elizabeth Wicks told him the Madonna painting restoration would be great subject to follow, Davide folded visits to the painting into his daily travels. Capturing the discoveries of the painting began this documentary, which eventually spread to encompass an institute for abandoned babies, Rennaissance archives, and the chronicled perseverance of women.

data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050133/Battistella_Bicycle_Florence-1-1024x428.png alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2403861 data-srcset=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050133/Battistella_Bicycle_Florence-1-1024x428.png 1024w, https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050133/Battistella_Bicycle_Florence-1-300x125.png 300w, https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050133/Battistella_Bicycle_Florence-1-768x321.png 768w, https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050133/Battistella_Bicycle_Florence-1-1536x642.png 1536w, https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050133/Battistella_Bicycle_Florence-1-624x261.png 624w, https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050133/Battistella_Bicycle_Florence-1.png 1973w data-sizes=(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px /> The whole film was literally made like this; my camera, my backpack, my tripod, maybe a couple lights, maybe a box of lenses, and really not going outside my own neighborhood. I don't have to cram everything into days. I can shoot half days, quarter days, this event, that event, and spread things out over a long period of time

data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050557/IOF_ %A92019_Firenze06_1200-1024x540.jpg alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2403880/>Alone with sparse equipment, Davide could afford the patience to catch the best of his adopted city. He studied the way the sun lit the buildings, and often waited several days to capture the perfect scene to illustrate this bittersweet film. From scene to scene, the movement of air is recorded weaving through the streets, and birds chirp and calling from nests above the loggia of the Institute degli Innocenti bring the audience directly to Florence itself.

With no overbearing time-table, Davide was able to grow relationships with the people he filmed. I like to build a trust, he says and an atmosphere when the camera can fall away and we can just be with somebody while they are creating . His style also allows for fortuitous events to unfold naturally in front of the lens.

data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16050358/IOF_ %A92019_art_conservation07_1200-1024x540.jpg alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2403871/>The unforced schedule of neighborhood filming combined with regular contact to Elizabeth Wicks allowed Davide's camera to record the most incredible moments of discovery, to the delight of his audience. One of the greatest discoveries, finding a second painting within the Madonna painting itself, which Elizabeth called one of the most exciting moments of my career , happens right before our eyes as we watch the film.

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