Young Olmi's success

This film shot by a very young Ermanno Olmi is an extraordinary document of how workers carried out their activities in the Sabbione reservoir. 

The director himself said that he used a technique never used before: "Some executives gave me the assignment to shoot the footage of a dam being built to be used as company documentation.

So, I stepped out of my office as an employee and went to the Morasco Dam in the upper Formazza Valley. When I arrived there, though, I changed my plans: in fact, instead of shooting on 16 mm, I got out an Arri 35 mm. In the meantime, by attending a workshop, I watched the footage of the cameramen shooting newsreels with an Arriflex.

I realized the difference between the reduced pitch and the normal one.  So, with my Arri, I toured the construction site for three weeks - it was 1954. Then I sound edited the film in a lab with a television speaker who, after the work was finished, took a copy of The Glacier’s Dam to RAI, which then decided to broadcast it."