SOLENOPSIS INVICTA

Synopsis

In a cactus nursery in Palermo, curious individuals live in a symbiosis with the insects and plants around them, sheltered from the violence of the world. This fragile ecosystem is threatened by the arrival of disinfection agents looking for a pest ant.

Statement of the director

The Ibervillea Cactus Nursery in Palermo (Sicily, Italy) is a place of care where people with psychiatric disorders, minors under judicial supervision, drug addicts, adolescents doing community service and, more rarely, clients come together on a daily basis. Enclosed island within an island, surrounded by high walls, it is also an ambiguous place that brings together men and women who are best kept under control. In this context, the ant, itself undesirable, freely crosses barriers and boundaries. This interference in the organisation of the world, between the inside and outside of the garden, creates a contact, questioning protectionist efforts that tend towards categorisation and rejection of otherness.
SOLENOPSIS INVICTA aims to paint an imaginary portrait of this idyllic garden and its occupants and, through fiction and humour, to question marginalisation, madness and violence.

Selected at

Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur