An Italian Winemaker Navigates Climate Change in Short Film 'Wildfire'

“What are you still doing here?” a friend asks. “I understand everything you’re saying. But why?” 

The land is burning. Smoke rising on the horizon. Encroaching. He moved there from the metropolis. He is a wine artisan, hanging his ear over earthen wine jars to listen to the fermentation. Inspecting the scorched ground around the crops. It is a centuries-old tradition, a cog at the heart of a drawl existence of hard work and simple pleasures - for the few that haven’t left at least. 

But at the town bar, in the farm homes, on the radio up and down dirt roads that stream through the thick vineyards, the news drone on about the wildfires, thirty thousand this year alone. Changes to the climate have made a once timeless routine something volatile and dangerous. To the winemakers, they take an existential dimension, turning an ancient art of patience into a high-stake game of snap decisions, where disaster is only a matter of time. 

Wildfire is Andree Ljutica’s latest short doc, following the Nowness-selection 756 and, in many ways, a precursor to his upcoming feature Rare Animals, which also mixes documentary film with the atmospheric elements of narrative film. In the narrative space, the CASEY director is behind YouTube-sensation How to Say I Love You at Night. 

Commercially, Andree comes from a strong year that culminated in directing Microsoft’s holiday campaign 'Make Your Holiday a Masterpiece.' Other clients include Nike, Alibaba, Everlast, the Brooklen Museum, and AirFrance. Andree comes from a background in painting and photography, the latter including a long-running, award-winning campaigns for New York Presbyterian. 

The CASEY roster includes several high-profile directors both in the commercial and film space. Director and inventor Carlo Van de Roer was behind key scenes in Thor: Ragnarok, as well as Love & Thunder, while ANIMAL’s Romain Choay released the comedy feature Heureux Gagnants earlier this year. Favourite Colour: Black, Nick & Chloé, Cokau, and Satelite Lab are behind prized short films as well as music videos for the likes of Adam Lambert, Rita Ora, Mika, and Corinne Bailey Rae. 

On the commercial side, the New York-based production company works with clients such as Meta, Cartier, Lexus, Starbucks, Microsoft, Chanel, Apple, and Mercedes-Benz. 

Check out the full film below: