Faberfilm

A FILO D’ACQUA
(On the Edge of Water)
a film by Gian Enrico Bianchi
Italy, 2005
color, 58’
Original version: Italian, German


On The Edge of Water is the portrait of canoeist Josefa Idem, born and raised in Germany and, by choice, naturalized in Italy.
With no commemorative intention the documentary film tells the complexity of the private and public role of a champion who “learned to fly” in 2000 by winning the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Sidney. With inner eye the film – almost a logbook – follows one of the most extraordinary italian and international athlete on the way to Athens 2004, her sixth Olympic Games.
In this framework the film explores not only the competitive aspects of an amazing sports adventure, but also the human aspects of an engaged woman - her relations with the family, with the sports fans, with politics, with the peculiar land of Romagna (the eastern part of the region Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy), which is not only the background for the Olympic training but also a significant narrative part. It is the ideal – cultural and geographical – set of this story.