To be free, not to be afraid. These are not notions we would normally associate with tightrope walking, when one's survival hangs on a cable. Not so for Andrea Loreni, the only Italian tightrope walker specializing in traverses at great heights, who climbed that cable seventeen years ago, and still has not finished exploring. His step is slow, his gaze unchanging. Quite the opposite of the confusion in which the everyday life of those who scramble to "not waste time," and instead lose the very thing that matters most: themselves. Loreni's tightrope walking has much to teach us all. Slow is the documentary that will tell his story and follow his practice in preparation for a new, epic feat: the crossing of Vittorio Veneto Square in Turin. And which, between past and present, will show how accepting uncertainty is the only way to find true balance and return to breathing at our own pace.
Do we still know what "slowness" means? Trapped between busy agendas and impending deadlines, the clocks tick, and the fear of "wasting time" dominates every thought. The art of tightrope walking, on the other hand, is quite the opposite: slow, thoughtful, untamed. Free. Andrea Loreni's art prescinds from the rhythms at which we all live, and has offered us a different prospect. One that puts balance, inner and outer, at the center. And one that restores importance to listening and to the flow, slow, of time. Similarly, Slow also wants to center this important dialogue about the health of contemporary society, focusing on tightrope walking and its exceptionalism, both human and spectacular. And push the audience to reconsider slowness: not an obstacle, but a strength.
Andrea Loreni