An old shepherd lives his last days in a quiet medieval village
perched high on the hills of Calabria, at the southernmost tip of
Italy. He herds goats under skies that most villagers have deserted
long ago. He is sick, and believes to find his medicine in the dust he
collects on the church floor, which he drinks in his water every day.
A new goat kid is born. We follow its first few tentative steps, its first
games, until it gains strength and goes to pasture. Nearby, a majestic fir tree stirs in the mountain breeze and slowly changes through
the seasons. The tree now lies on the ground. It has been reduced
to its own skeleton, and is transformed into wood coal through the
ancestral work of the local coal makers. Our sight gets lost in the
ashes’ smoke. Le Qua ttro Volte is a poetic vision of the revolving
cycles of life and nature and the unbroken traditions of a timeless
place. The story of one soul that moves through four successive lives.