Experiencing Interruptions?

The White Caravan

Darkness is everywhere when the sky is moonless.

Only the thin beam of a searchlight attempts to cut through the darkness, showing glimpses of stationary caravans and crouching animals.

The circus sign is a lone spark of color straining to light up the huge highway on the outskirts of Naples, where four circus families abandoned by the institutions are stuck in the hope that the pandemic will soon disappear like in a magic show.

Their lives have been short circuited after four generations of conveying their marquee around the world.

The artists of the traveling show begin their metamorphosis, their forced entry into the world of the "rooted," a struggle to reinvent themselves in order to survive.

The circus has stopped, perhaps forever.

  • Angelo Cretella
    Director
  • Artemide Alfieri
    Director
  • Cinema Clandestino
    Producer
  • Stefano Grosso
    Sound Editor
    Notturno, Martin Eden, Sacro GRA, Fuocoammare, ecc
  • OEOAS
    Music
  • Renato Fiorito
    Music
  • Antonio Raia
    Music
  • Andrea Orsini
    Colorist
    Youth, The Great Beauty, Certified Copy, ecc
  • Luca Bigazzi
    Color Supervisor
    The Great Beauty, The Conseguence of love, Bread and Tulips, Nasty Love, ecc
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    La Carovana Bianca
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 9 minutes
  • Country of Origin:
    Italy
  • Country of Filming:
    Italy
  • Language:
    Italian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • 28° Visioni Italiane - Cineteca di Bologna

    Italy
    Best Documentary
  • 11°Catania Film Fest

    Italy
    Best Italian Film
  • 20° Mostra del Cinema di Taranto

    Italy
    Best Documentary
  • 62° Festival dei Popoli

    Italy
  • 56° Laceno D'oro

    Italy
  • 13° Intimalente Film Festival

    Italy
    Audience Award
  • 20° Ischia Film Festival

    Italy
  • 2° Bardolino Film Festival

    Italy
    Jury Special Mention
  • 21° Clorofilla Film Festival

    Italy
    Special Award "De Seta"
  • 8° On the Road Film Festival

    Italy
    Jury Special Mention
  • 4° Messapica Film Festival

    Italy
  • 10° Ariano International Film Festival

    Italy
  • 9° Torino Underground Cinefest

    Italy
  • 12° Festival del Cinema di Spello

    Italy
Distribution Information
  • Cinema Clandestino
    Distributor
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: Theatrical
Director Biography - Angelo Cretella, Artemide Alfieri

ANGELO CRETELLA

BIOGRAPHY:
Born in 1979 in Succivo (Caserta), graduated in Philosophy at Federico II University of Napoli. He started to make films when he was twenty and never stop to do it, thanks to a deep passion for cinema. In 2015 began his career as high school teacher, since then he teaches cinematographic language in a suburban context.
He has made several workshop and collaborates with the University of Turin and University of Naples.

ARTEMIDE ALFIERI

BIOGRAPHY:
Born in 1988 in Giugliano (Napoli), In 2015 she obtained the diploma in film editing at National Film School (Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia).
She won a scholarship in 2015 at Escape Studios in London and one more in 2017 with Armani Group. She has had the opportunity to improve her skills learning from masters as Abel Ferrara, Roberto Perpignani and Pappi Corsicato.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

The White Caravan was born from a desire to reignite a love of cinema, and to do it in the red zone: clandestinely.
The documentary catapulted us into the caravans of our protagonists, where the cinema, in a return to its origins, met the circus - or what remains of the circus.
Women and men forced to a standstill, forced to question their lives as traveling artists and to witness helplessly the mutation of their bodies and of their children’s, and the agony of their world.
It must also have been for this reason that we were granted a blind, desperate trust from our protagonists.
They entrusted their lives to us and gave us an improvised show: no tricks, no numbers, no applause, naked without any masks to wear.
Living in the circus has been a great privilege and being able to document one of its worst moments has invested us with an enormous responsibility, not only towards the people and their history but also to our own childhood memories and the images of the circus we carry inside.
We had the opportunity to experience the pandemic inside and outside the circus and we saw that while in one sphere selfishness, fear and intolerance grew, solidarity and empathy bloomed in the circus.
A small society united against something huge that made them question everyone and everything.
We have tried to give the film a lightness, in parts a detachment, so there are few scenes in which anguish and fear shine through.
What we have found, in the folds of an exhausting everyday life, is the strength and dignity of those who find themselves forced to question, and the hope of those who cannot imagine that everything is about to end.