close
shape
Almanac
shape
Small format stories
shape
Team and contacts
close
12 June1976
The baby girl from outer space
Author
Enzo Magistro
Format
8mm
Credits
Music by Guglielmo Pagnozzi

The birth of a child in the family film is usually celebrated by the father with the film of the first bath, a real baptism with the camera. Some film cradles and bows instead, some even film the birth. Some others, we have seen, stage the arrival with a package sent by the stork and delivered to the little brothers and sisters, but the latest frontier of the family film is science fiction. Here then, to narrate the birth of his third daughter, Elena, on 12 June 1976, filmmaker Enzo Magistro tells us in his own way how babies are born, his daughter Elena arrives from outer space... Magistro imagines that, before landing and 'materialising' as a new member of the family, Elena is a silver marble, a luminescent dot (an embryo?) wandering the galaxy in search of a hospitable place to settle. It is only after several unsuccessful attempts - an icy planet, one where a conflict between robots blazes with crackling firecrackers, another populated by voracious dinosaurs (more models, puppets, toys) - that the space marble will find asylum on Earth. In Reggio Emilia it will finally take on the human form of a baby, on which the curious gazes of its older siblings will rest. Thanks to Elena Gipponi for her contribution to the text.

Share