Tree Mourners
An ecosomatic performance of mourning rituals for the death of trees conceived for the medium of film.
Synopsis
It was the custom of our ancestors in the South of Italy to mourn the dead in public. Laments were performed to heal the pain for the loss and secure a safe passage to the afterlife. Today, forgetful of our memories of mourning, we fail to bear witness to the death of forests around us. Instead of feeling trees dying in us, we are letting our humanity die with them. Even when we see a dying forest, the city is too loud to hear its voices. If we follow our bodies into the unknown and join trees in their abandonment, an ancient alliance can be unveiled.
Tree Mourners
Director, writer, producer: Raffaele Rufo
Performers: Helen Spackman, Valentina Vitolo, Chiara Marchesano, Tommaso Collalti
Submitted to the 2025 International Ecoperformance Film Festival (IEFF).
Category: Short film, Ecopoet[h]ics
Place of performance
Rome (Italy)
Year
2025
Runtime
9’
Film colour
Black and White
Director’s Bio
Raffaele Rufo (PhD) is a community-engaged and eco-oriented performance artist, director and artistic researcher. He works with movement, textual and audiovisual practices to explore body-earth reciprocity and facilitates participatory art processes of ecological awareness and social responsiveness. Raffaele is currently based in Rome where he collaborates with Teatro del Lido di Ostia as artistic director of ‘La Selva’ International Ecosomatic and Regenerative Arts Residency and where he is an active member of the city’s ‘Community Educational Pacts’. His ecosomatic approach is entwined with the Australian ensemble ‘Liminal Theatre and Performance’, with body-phenomenology and with the Argentine Tango dance, which he later combined with Contact Improvisation, Body Weather, the Feldenkrais method, deep ecology and biological gardening. After focusing his performance practice on Melbourne’s public urban spaces, Raffaele has explored eco-grief and the search for roots in hybrid urban-naturalistic areas of Milan and Rome. His recent project include ‘Danced by the Tree’ (Independent), ‘Return of the Centaurs’ (Pompeii Archeological Park), ‘Ecosomatic Persephone’ (Humanitas Mundi Teatro), and ‘Ecokinetics’ (Floating University Berlin). Raffaele is a founding member of the International Forum for Eco-Embodied Arts (IFEEA) and editor of the special issues on ‘Ecologies of Embodiment’ of the videographic Journal of Embodied Research 5(2) and 7(2). His research on ecosomatics has been widely published in academic journals and book collections. www.raffaelerufo.com