Massimo Berruti
Guerra infinita

  • Italy
  • it
  • en
  • 29'
Massimo Berruti | Guerra infinita 
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Synopsis

Although he had initially planned a career in biology, Massimo Berruti quickly abandoned his studies to become a photojournalist, joining the VU’ agency and later MAPS. After documenting the industrial and cultural crises of his native Italy, he turned his attention to Pakistan for a long-term project on the impact of the war on terrorism on local populations. Francesco G. Raganato’s film retraces this immersion in the country’s border regions. In a minimalist style, the camera follows the Italian photographer as he meets victims of American drone strikes and the relatives of missing people, kidnapped by secret services. Alternating between the dignity of portraiture and the urgency of street protests, his work highlights the suffering of a people caught in the crossfire of a globalized conflict and denounces the cowardice of a remote-controlled war.

What you will find in this film

A long-term investigation in Pakistan on the war against terrorism and its collateral damage • navigating between the necessity of commissions and the demands of a personal project • the use of black and white as a metaphorical approach • the technical choices to maintain visual coherence over several years

Keywords

Reportage & Society The Artist at Work Photography Careers Portrait & Aesthetics Photographic memory
Some photojournalists start a subject but never finish it. 
As far as I am concerned, there is a big difference between an assignment and a personal project. An assignment is a job that takes place over two or three days and is one of the means to eventually fund one's own project. 
For those who work in black and white in similar or different contexts, I think the approach consists of elevating the discourse to a somewhat more metaphorical vision. 
Color is too heavy a burden to carry to achieve the level of spontaneity I was looking for. 
It happens that some photographers use these stories to talk about themselves. What seems absolutely essential to me is to use this medium to give people back the dignity they deserve.

Documentaries about photography, and about the people who make it. 
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What you’ll find

Portraits of photographers, names everyone knows and others you’ll discover here. Films about street photography, war, fashion or portraiture, about printing and historical processes. About the trades of photography too. And then suggestions for going further, with Focuses, articles, interviews, bibliographies.

A small independent team

Documentaries about photography were rarely shown on television, and hardly at all on streaming platforms. We created The Darkroom Rumour to give them a place of their own. We are a small team, and we choose every film ourselves, with no school to defend.

Inspire your photography

In these films, you see photographers at work, in the field as well as in the darkroom. If you take pictures, you’ll often come away with an idea to try. If you simply like looking at images, you may start to see them differently.

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The authors/artists

Massimo Berruti
Massimo Berruti
Photographer
Francesco G. Raganato
Francesco G. Raganato
Film director

Further exploration

Selected bibliography

• Shahzad Bashir and Robert D. Crews (eds.), Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands, Harvard University Press, 2012. Publisher · Libraries

• Medea Benjamin, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, Verso, 2013. Publisher · Libraries

• Lisa Parks and Caren Kaplan (eds.), Life in the Age of Drone Warfare, Duke University Press, 2017. Publisher · Libraries

• Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Libraries

• Ariella Azoulay, The Civil Contract of Photography, Zone Books, 2008. Publisher · Libraries

Online

• The Undisclosed, Massimo Berruti, portfolio, Foreign Policy, 2014.

• "Will I be next?" US drone strikes in Pakistan, report, Amnesty International, 2013.

• Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan, report, Stanford Law School, 2012.

• Fire from the Blue Sky, Mirza Shahzad Akbar and Umer Gilani, Sur, International Journal on Human Rights, 2015.

• Lashkars in Pakistan by Massimo Berruti, Vivienne Walt, Time, 2011.