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.

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The authors/artists

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

Further exploration

Bibliography

Resources

Aqil Shah, Magnus Marsden, Benjamin D. Hopkins, Robert D. Crews, Shah Mahmoud Hanifi et al. – Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands, Harvard University Press, 2012. (English) – A key collective volume for understanding everyday life and political complexity along the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands. 

Medea Benjamin – Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, Verso, 2013. (English) – A critical and accessible account of the rise of armed drones, their targets and their political consequences. 

Lisa Parks & Caren Kaplan, eds. – Life in the Age of Drone Warfare, Duke University Press, 2017. (English) – A major interdisciplinary collection on drones, surveillance, law, geopolitics and the lived effects of remote war. 

Susan Sontag – Regarding the Pain of Others, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. (English) – A foundational essay on war photography, distance, spectatorship and the moral ambiguity of looking at suffering. 

Ariella Azoulay – The Civil Contract of Photography, Zone Books, 2008. (English) – A demanding but important work on photography as a civic relation between photographer, photographed subject and viewer.

Massimo Berruti – « The Undisclosed », Foreign Policy, 2014 – A series directly linked to the film: portraits of victims of the American drone war in Pakistan. 

Amnesty International – « “Will I be next?” US drone strikes in Pakistan », 2013 – A key report on US drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas in 2012 and 2013.

Stanford Law School & NYU School of Law – « Living Under Drones », 2012 – A major investigation based on testimonies from civilians, survivors and humanitarian workers in Pakistan.  

Sur – International Journal on Human Rights – « Fire from the Blue Sky », 2014 – An article on how hard it is to count the victims and why their stories need to be heard. 

Ishaan Tharoor – « Lashkars in Pakistan by Massimo Berruti », TIME, 2011 – A valuable article on the book Lashkars, Berruti’s method and his view of the Pashtun militias of the Swat Valley.