Italy/France, 2013, HD, 85’
(v.o. Spanish – Subtitles: English, French, Italian)

With Alfredo Mires Ortiz, Dina Vitón Casas, Nancy Huamán Campos, Sonia Elisabeth Aliaga Sánchez directed by Pier Paolo Giarolo cinematography Pier Paolo Giarolo film editing Milena Holzknecht, Liza Ignazi sound François Waledisch Produced by Valerio B. Moser & Andreas Pichler, Miramonte Film – Pierre-Oliver Bardet, Idéale Audience in coproduction with ARTE France in association with Lucia Candelpergher – Caravella Film with the support of Programme Media de l’Union Européenne, BLS-Business Location Südtirol / Alto Adige, Centre National de la Cinématographie, Procirep – Société des Producteurs, Angoa in collaboration with SRF Schweizer Radio & Fernsehen, RAI – Sender Bozen, Alfredo Mires Ortiz, Red de Bibliotecas Rurales de Cajamarca, Perù

In a lost village in the Peruvian Andes a young girl has been waiting for days for a librarian who will walk all the way carrying the books on her shoulders.
Rural Libraries in Peru are made up of a few dozen books that, once read, are exchanged for others between communities. Both message and messenger travel together, in a pristine landscape a few steps away from the clouds; books walk as people walk.
“Reading the earth, walking on it and knowing it, is the best way to love it and to respect it”.

A film about the experience of rural libraries implies a message: if we remain united it is possible to do things. Reading a book is not only storing knowledge, it’s freeing wisdom. When we appropriate a book, we “incorporate” it like a seed, like a source; thanks to a book, people have learned how to cook, how to weave and combine colors, how to cure themselves, how to defend their own rights.
I wanted to show this strong connection between reading and practice, not so much reading for its own sake, but reading as if it were an exercise in agriculture.  (Pier Paolo Giarolo)

Pier Paolo Giarolo
After earning a piano diploma from the Conservatory of Vicenza, Pier Paolo opened a graphic design studio.
In 2002 he directed his first documentary in Argentina. With some friends, he then founded a film-club in Mantua (“Il cinema del Carbone”), which has become the only independent cinema in town after the opening of a multiplex. In 2005 he won the Roma Doc Fest’s Best Documentary award with his work Un piccolo spettacolo (A Small Show).
He then set up his own production company, Outroad, with which he realized the documentaries Boygo (2007), Tradurre (Translating, 2008) and Il capodanno di Nis (Nis’s New Year’s Eve, 2009), which were selected in several film festivals in Italy and in Europe.
In 2008 he obtained the license for “travelling cinema show” and is now trying to learn this job with purposes of rigor and elegance.
In 2012 he directed Valentino’s Gift, produced by Erica Barbiani (Videomante) in co-production with ARTE and in 2013 Books and Clouds, produced by Pierre-Olivier Bardet (Idéale Audience), Valerio B. Moser, and Andreas Pichler (Miramonte Film), which premiered in Nyon, Visions du Réel.
In the last years he has also worked as a DOP with several directors in Italy and in France.

Selected filmography: Libros y nubes, documentary, 85’, 2013; Il capodanno di Nis (Nis’ New Year’s Day), documentary, 25’, 2009; Tradurre (To Translate), documentary, 56’, 2008; Un piccolo spettacolo (A Little Show), documentary, 58’, 2005