Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com
A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
Matinee: 'The Open Windows'
13 November 2021
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 422nd in our series of Saturday matinees today: The Open Windows by Jan Zert.
This 6:30 video by Jan Zert is a slide show of stills of Pratobello on Sardegna. He titled it The Open Windows but you'll need a little history lesson to appreciate what it's all about.
In the summer of 1969 the Ministry of Defense had decided to build a military training camp there after asking the shepherds to leave the area. It was a small village with a church, school and housing intended for the families of the soldiers who would work at the shooting range in the pastures.
The buildings were built but the the entire town of Orgosolo, led by women but including men and children, marched in protest to the Pratobello plain. Part of the protest included painting murals in the town that became internationally famous.
The protest lasted a week during which the 3,500 townspeople occupied the fields. And ultimately were successful in preventing the military installation. Today, Pratobello (beautiful meadow in translation) is a ghost town with an empty cemetery that was never used.
On the 50th anniversary of the protest in 2019, the town council issued this resolution:
On that occasion an entire community opposed the unilateral decision of the Ministry of Defense to build a military training camp a few kilometers from the country, causing a bitter revolt against the Trieste Brigade, which had ordered the shepherds to evacuate the area to be used for shooting exercises.
In fact, by refusing the compensation offered and involving the entire population in the struggle, they managed to repel the police, putting in place disturbing actions and destroying the targets to be used for the exercises. Pratobello turned into a political case, which saw the involvement of the honorable members of the time and when the agents managed to enter the polygon, they found it occupied by demonstrators.
After six days of relentless struggle the story ended with the ratification of the document which established that the installation of the shooting range would be temporary and that any further decision on the matter would be adopted in compliance with the administrations interested premises. The administration concludes the exercise and the discussion with a view to the project to be carried out on the matter, to take it as an example of struggle to defend the territory and the local economy based, as stated on the mural, with the motto "Manure Not Bullets."
The ghostly remains of that struggle is the subject of Zert's images. There is an inescapable desolation, you might think at first. But it is escapable, it turns out. The windows are open on a vibrant landscape.
You only have to look through them. Like the people of Orgosolo.