Arquivo / 49ª mostra

Pino Zimba is a zestful fruit and vegetable seller. To make ends meet at the end of the month, he must supplement his income with a shipment of contraband cigarettes from Albania. His problems are not merely economical. His brother, Donato, an ex-drug addict and much younger, is also a cause of concern to Zimba. Both are in trauma over the death of their father in an accident for which Zimba feels responsible. Donato is very famous as a performer on the panderetta, a large tambourine used for the pizzicata, a dance typical of Southeast Italy, that transports the dancers to a trance. Things come to a head between the brothers when Donato decides to abandon the musical folk group led by Zimba on the very eve, when the group is about to sign a contract with a records agency. Zimba is well aware that music is the only means to draw Donato away from dependence on heroine and to keep him away from Giovanni, a heartless criminal. Instead of the panderetta, Donato opts for a world of petty offenses: a small theft here, a threat there, friends under the influence of drugs further ahead - he goes deeper and deeper, driven into a bottomless pit. Without help, without love from his brother, he will never make it, never surface again. Live Blood won a New Directors‚Äô Prize in San Sebastián 2000.