Nel giardino dei suoni

Prix de Soleure, 2010
Best Documentary, Mostra Internacional de Cinema 2010, Sao Paolo, Brasil
Grand Prix, Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival 2010
Audience Award, Festival dei popoli 2010, Florence, Italy
Mention Spéciale, Film Prize of the City of Basel, 2009 (short version)
Best Documentary, Festa del documentario Hai Visto Mai? 2011, Siena, Italy
Special Mention, The London International Documentary Festival 2011, UK
Vision du Réel Nyon 2010, Switzerland
Mostra Internacional de Cinema 2010, Sao Paolo, Brasil
Festival dei Popoli 2010, Florence, Italy
Taiwan International Documentary Festival 2010, Taichung
Palm Springs International Film Festival 2011, USA (Best of Fest selection)
Margaret Mead Film Festival 2010, New York, USA
Docaviv Festival 2011, Tel Aviv, Israel
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – Images of the 21st Century 2011, Greece
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2011, Durham, USA
The London International Documentary Festival 2011, UK
Reykjavik International Film Festival 2011, Iceland
Bergamo Film Meeting 2011, Italy
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival 2011, USA
Reel Music Festival 2011, Portland, Oregon, USA
International Human Rights Film Festival 2012, Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Finnish Red Cross Film Festival 2011, Turku, Finland
Festa del Documentario Hai Visto Mai? 2011, Siena, Italy
Reframing Reality 2011, Jerusalem, Israel
DMZ Korean International Documentary Festival 2011, Paju, South Korea
Docaviv Galilee Film Festival 2011, Galilee, Israel
iDocs International Documentary Forum 2011, Beijing, China
Margaret Mead Traveling Festival 2011 (Sydney, Australia; Skopje, Macedonia)
Festival de Cine Internacional de Ourense 2010, Spain
Sprout Festival New York 2011, USA
Taipeh Golden Horse Festival (DocDay) 2010, Taiwan
Festival italiano del cinema sociale 2011, Arezzo, Italy
Sguardi sul Reale 2011, Terranuova Bracciolini, Italy
Festival DiversArte 2011, Bari, Italy
Psyennale 2012, Vienna, Austria
Solothurner Filmtage 2010, Switzerland

«An accoustic and visual experience in a class of its own.»
Michael Sennhauser, Swiss National Public Radio, Basel, Switzerland

«A wonderful film about a wonderful human being.»
Swiss Public Television SF, Zurich, Switzerland

«One of the most beautiful documentaries of the year.»
Martin Walder, Filmbulletin, Switzerland

««In the Garden of Sounds» is a visual and aural masterpiece!»
Ines Kuna, The Vanguard, Oregon, USA

«One cannot help but experience the joy that these children feel when they realize that they are not alone and are part of something much bigger. We, the viewers, become witness to a journey into a new world, a world of sound, and see children find a way to improve their lives and it is a joyous experience. The cinematography and the sound are amazing. We become part of the relationship between sound, mind and body and communication becomes so much more important. This is a film not to be missed.»
Amos Lassen, Reviews by Amos Lassen, USA

«… exquisitely made, keenly observational film. (…) It is beautiful and humbling to see the love, patience and compassion Fasser gives these children. Through the seemingly small but profound breakthroughs they make together, we are reminded of the inherent musicality of the human body and its connection to the sounds of nature.»
Shawn Levy, The Oregonian, Portland, USA

«… Nicola Bellucci’s surprisingly artful «In The Garden of Sounds» is a tender and poetic documentary that assays the latent magic of our sensory perception. (…) In the touching twilight space between symphonic uplift and silence, debut director Bellucci seemingly locates distilled elements of the human soul.»
Brent Simon, Shockya Reviews, USA

«A moving story about a stroke of fate that leads to the discovery of life’s infinite possibilities.»
La Repubblica, Italy

«Nicola Bellucci’s beautiful documentary «Nel Giardino dei Suoni» is about a very different kind of garden: the garden of sounds. Bellucci portrays the Swiss musician, sound researcher and music therapist Wolfgang Fasser, who lost eyesight as a young person. For many years, Fasser has worked in Tuscany with severely disabled children, introducing them to the world of sound by using all kinds of natural sounds, noises and music. The camera (Pio Corradi, Pierre Mennel and Nicola Bellucci) discreetly observes how the therapist works and tracks the children’s development as well as the difficulties, that Fasser encounters. However, he never seems to run out of ideas and energy. Fascinated by the sounds of his environment, he is constantly recording sonic events like singing birds early in the morning. Later he plays these recordings to the children. «Nel Giardino dei Suoni» was a high point of the Solothurn Festival, a wonderful film, which opens your ears.»
Silvia Süess, WochenZeitung, Zurich, Switzerland

«Director Nicola Bellucci portrays the blind Wolfgang Fasser, who works as a therapist with disabled children in Tuscany. Fasser, who lost his eyesight due to a genetic disease when he was 22 years old, is in sync with his world, in the truest sense of the word. He does not have the impression that he cannot see, he says: «Because I hear» (…). The camera follows him on his excursions into nature, where Fasser captures sounds on tape that he later integrates into his patients’ world of experience. It is not just the images, which Bellucci creates to the soundtrack, that are fascinating. Fasser himself and his work with the children leave a lasting impression. «Nel Giardino del Suoni» was rightly nominated for the Prix de Soleure jury prize. This prize is awarded to «an outstanding feature or documentary that convinces through its distinct humanism and expresses its ideas in a cinematically impressive form.» In this sense, «Nel Giardino del Suoni» is convincing all the way.»
Annette Scharnberg, Basler Zeitung, Basel, Switzerland

«… beautifully shot… Naturally, the sound design in a film of this subject is a paramount element, and this piece delivers beautifully. The sound is exquisite, the music evocative and yet not obtrusive or overdone. Particularly striking is how quiet the film is. It would be easy to go overboard, smashing viewers over the head with the use of sound in a film of this sort, and I applaud the filmmakers Niccola Bellucci, soundscape artist Walter Tilgner, and sound editor Florian Beck for resisting the temptation. This film will awaken in the viewer their own sensory assumptions and, perhaps, give the gift of regarding their world and those in it in new ways.»
Dot Rust, Oregon Music News, Portland, USA

«The other winning film made us prick up our ears. «Nel giardino dei suoni» is the portrait of a sound researcher from Glarus, who became blind in his youth due to a genetic disease. Today, he lives in Tuscany, where he works as a music therapist with severely disabled children. When it is getting light, he wanders through the landscape with his microphone and records the melodic silence of nature. He calls the acoustic images that he collects «postcards». This film could have resulted in utter humanitarian kitsch. But the Italian director Nicola Bellucci has succeeded in making sensitive cinema in the best sense of the word: this film expands the senses and remains on the right side of sentimentality. The jury awarded Bellucci the Prix de Soleure.»
Florian Keller, Tagesanzeiger, Zurich, Switzerland

«The jury that was to award Switzerland’s second highest film prize to an «outstanding feature, that convinces through its distinct humanism and expresses its ideas in a cinematically impressive form» picked a rather quiet, subtle production: «Nel Giardino dei Suoni» by the filmmaker Nicola Bellucci who was born in 1963 in Arezzo. The film follows the blind musician and sound researcher Wolfgang Fasser into his world of sounds. Fasser works with severely disabled children and tries to pull them from their isolation. When he sets off at night with his guide dog and recording equipment to collect audio «postcards», you learn to listen for sounds, whose significance you perhaps do not yet understand. This film challenges and sensitizes the audience’s senses and in its own quiet way makes a stand against cheap showmanship and smug noise.»
Bettina Spoerri, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich, Switzerland