Paolo Soleri’s urban utopia in Arizona, between the Mediterranean and the red Indians

The documentary, “Ask The Sand”, by Vittorio Bongiorno illustrates the story of a dream called Arcosanti, created by the Turin architect. From the construction of the first “Dome House” to the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale

Over there in Arizona / land of dreams and chimeras / if a guitar plays / a thousand blackcaps answer”, began the famous tango by Cesare Andrea Bixio and Bixio Cherubini in 1928… Almost a century later, Arizona really turns out to be the land of a dream called Arcosanti, created by the Turin architect Paolo Soleri, which is perhaps even a chimera or perhaps a utopia, even if those who try to carry it forward prefer to speak of it as a “city-laboratory”. But there is also the guitar playing. Indeed, it is played by the protagonists father and son of “Ask The Sand” (subtitle “Can we change the future?”): film that will be screened on June 14 in world premiere at the Biografilm Festival – International Celebration of Lives in Bologna and will subsequently also go to the Countless Cities Architecture Biennial in Favara (Ag). The documentary is written and directed by Vittorio Bongiorno, in collaboration with Sky Arte, which will broadcast it in the autumn, and has received the support of the Emilia Romagna Film Commission. The director, a Sicilian living in Bologna, has written novels and documentaries in the past, such as the musical story of Duke Ellington in Palermo in 1970, the novel “Il Duka in Sicilia” (Einaudi Stile libero, 2011), or the rockabilly documentary “Greetings From Austin” (2019) always aired for Sky Arte.