Gianni Berengo Gardins

Gianni Berengo Gardin's Tale of Two Cities

Directed by Donna Serbe-Davis
France, Italy, U.K., U.S. | 2019 | Documentary
67 minutes | English & Italian

How can the endangered city of Venice be preserved? Gianni Berengo Gardin, Italy’s most famous living photographer, addresses this question with his powerful photographs. “Gianni Berengo Gardin’s Tale of Two Cities” both offers a compelling portrait of the photographer and his work, which celebrates the daily life of Venice and its people over many decades, and recounts the dramatic story of a controversial exhibition that triggered debate, protests, and an international outcry. Berengo Gardin’s early work highlights the “lost” Venice of cafes, canals, and markets that made up a small and vibrant community, and his more modern work effectively shows the cost of tourism gone awry, with his images of the city always under the looming shadows of giant cruise ships. The documentary thus simultaneously examines the photographer’s commitment to Venice and cogently makes the case for why cruise-ship tourism in Venice needs to be curbed to protect this Italian jewel.