Il Pastore, 2011

The documentary »Il Pastore« questions the idealized imagery of Italy. In a similar tradition to the pastoral paintings throughout history, we once again meet a romanticized conception of a rural life in harmony. Hoflund’s portrait of a shepherd at work in the Sicilian countryside, uses the idyllic projections from contemporary medias; especially that of lifestyle-literature and television.

With the use of slow and still pictorial language – without any dialogue or clear narratives – the half-hour long film reflects upon the notion of time, generational shifts and cultural decay. The film seems as a tribute as well as a deconstruction of the pastoral motif, by intertwining now and then and dissolving the notions of the fantastic and the real. Daniel Hoflund’s »Il Pastore« address – as the picturesque historical imagery – questions on dreams, image-making and perception in a landscape where the mythologised and demythologised wander side by side.