Desc: Oltre le rive: Directed by Riccardo de Cal. BEYOND THE RIVER BANKS is a choral film with many characters. A fresco of the individuals that inhabit the area around the River Piave. A couple of young shepherds - Valentina and Emanuele - leads a herd of more than a thousand sheep; we follow their journey right up until the arrival of their firstborn child. They are always on the move, following the unchanging rhythm of the seasons and the rules of transhumance, which are cast in stone. More than fifty years have passed since Giampietro and Franca Maschio opened Italy's first Sex Shop in 1969. Giampietro passed away some years ago, and now Franca dedicates herselt to keeping his memory alive. An ardent Catholic, she has a shrine in her sitting room, looks after her chicken coop and runs the shop herself. She considers her work in helping many people satisfy otherwise repressed erotic desires as merit-worthy. Their stories offer a counterpoint to the extremes of the river and its past. In fact the Piave is well-known as the final frontier of the resistance - and ultimate victory - against the Austro- Hungarian army in the First World War. Legend and memory are re-enacted and, as often proves to be the case, can end up verging on the farcical. Comandante Zanardo rebuilds fighter planes and organises commemorative events. Davide is a young salvager; he and his family are the only inhabitants left living on Monte Grappa. He writes books about the War and accompanies groups of elderly people on tours of the sites of bloody battles. And the Bersaglieri Regiment practices its traditional "fanfare" as it races along the banks of the river. Another event that gouged a deep scar in the river's history was the enormous landslide which fell into the basin of the Vajont dam, creating a huge wave which slammed into the riverbed below, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Sergio and Giovanni are cousins who survived the disaster. They live in a new town built purposely for the evacuees, and they often return to the places where they grew up before the disaster struck. Other characters come and go in the background, in keeping with the cycle of the changing seasons. One such is the mysterious violinist who appears on a boat. Or an old river fisherman lamenting the lack of fish. Or the elderly guests of Albergo Trieste, a hotel where time seems to have stood still since the '60s. The film is peppered with symbolic locations, and places marked by small-scale and major events: dams and river sources, mass tourism, small beaches where bathers seek refuge from the scorching summer heat, and the fleeting procession of the Giro d'Italia cycling race. Then there is the flood which affected everyone, second only to the one which hit the area in 1966, submerging hundreds of homes. One of which was the little house on the shores of the River Piave where Goffredo Parise once lived and penned his work, I Sillabari.