Off Grid and Trad in the Italian Alps

 

Luca Ventrella was living in a dense city in Northern Italy when, on one of his weekend hikes in the Alps, he stumbled upon a rundown stone cabin. He bought it for 8,000 euros. Since the roof and walls were intact, he could move in and begin to turn it into a home. The dry stone cabin was originally built as a shepherd’s hut, "baita," where shepherds would spend months at a time here while their flock grazed during the summer months.

Given the home’s distance from the electrical grid, solar power was the only option. Ventrella first put in a simple system and later upgraded to something more powerful with lithium batteries and very potent and reliable inverters. Because power tools are expensive, but mostly because Ventrella likes the feel of hand tools, he built an outdoor shower, toilet, furniture, and stairs out of hand-hewn wood from the surrounding forests. “Hand tools are cheap. They always work. And they are very rewarding to use.”

His water comes from a stream located several hundred meters from the home. The pipeline was installed back when the mountain pasture was used for grazing, and the water was used for the animals. Ventrella has improved on the gravity flow system by installing cisterns that filter and store water for periods of drought.

The home is very rustic and minimal, both an aesthetic choice of Ventrella’s, but also because any building material had to be carried on foot up the mountain path. The isolation that the cabin affords allows Ventrella time to find a new rhythm, one more attuned to the cycles of nature. When not building, he spends his time here beekeeping (a potential income source), mushroom picking, and cooking elaborate meals. 

"Time changes here completely. I adapt to the rhythms of nature. I go to sleep earlier. I wake up earlier. The day can be very short when I work or expand when I also relax because the distractions are few."

For more videos by Luca, check out his YouTube channel. 

"Primitive London"(1965)

Exploitation film documentary on 'Swinging London' "as it actually happened" or a portrait of a society coming out of deprivation. Arnold Louis Miller, the director of 'Nudist Memories', interviews mods, rockers and beatniks. Wife Swapping, an overworked stripper, child birth, the killing of chickens, a tattoist and an interview with Billy J. Kramer also feature. The unsolved 1963-64 Hammersmith Nude Murders or the'Jack the Stripper' murders of Irene Lockwood, Hannah Tailford and Elizabeth Figg are presented. A concert by The Zephyrs is also shown. This band formed in London in 1961 as Johnny Saville and the Clee-Shays, then became The Zephyrs in 1963. They are not related to the group from Stockton-on-Tees (that band later changed its name to The Zephrons). Jerry Donahue later played with Fairport Convention and the reformed Yardbirds, while Peter Gage played with The Ram Jam Band and Vinegar Joe.

Dreadheads: Portrait of a Subculture

Dreadheads: Portrait of a Subculture. The award-winning documentary by Steven R. Hurlburt and Flournoy Holmes provides a fun, witty, incisive trip down an unexplored tributary of Grateful Dead fan culture. Featuring interviews with authors (David Gans, Blair Jackson, Steve Silberman), musicians (Bob Weir, Jimmy Herring, Dave Schools, John Bell), academics and the heads who populate the scene. Original soundtrack music by Spunhuny.

Wooks (2022)

We live in an age of the Spectacle. Where looking like something means you 'are' it. A wook is short for wookie. Plural: wooks. The dirty, vagranty variety of hippy. Almost always unemployed, following around jambands or festivals, and ripping people off. It is clearly a negative term (which I had never heard before now). But watching this short doco that takes 'wooks' as its subject, I have another issue with the culture the term represents. These people seem to be very isolated in themselves. They don't even seem really to relate to each other, outside the visual of looking at one another. They are compared online to jugaloos, but I think even those that are 'down with the clown' have a more cohesive community. Wooks is about the remnants of a dream, that actually died for those not willing, or unable, to leave mainstream society behind IN THEIR HEADS, sometime around 1969. Wooks is a portrait cast in a dirty pool by the roadside of a society that values appearance and distraction over substance.

The Doors Are Open 1968

The Doors Are Open is a 1968 black-and-white documentary about the American rock group the Doors. It was produced by Jo Durden-Smith for Granada TV and directed by John Sheppard and first aired in the United Kingdom on 4 October 1968. The programme combines footage of the Doors playing live at London's Roundhouse venue, interviews with the band members and contemporary news snippets of world current affairs - protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention, French riots, statements from politicians and footage of the Vietnam War etc.

The Outback Eclipse Story Psytrance Goa Festival Last Light Films (Full Movie)

The 'Outback Eclipse Story' follows the story of a festival..to celebrate the unique natural phenomenon that is a total solar eclipse. Set deep in the heart of the South Australian outback this feature length documentary details what happens when thousands of global citizens travel to one of the harshest environs on earth to experience a total eclipse and the magic and freedom that surround it. It tells the tale of a pilgrimage, that of a collective people who long to experience the mysterious in an unknown land far from the realms of restrictive socio-cultural communities to a place of freedom where laughter, love, magic and natural phenomenon find a home

Syd Barrett: Up Close and Personal

A 2007 documentary. The rise and fall of original Pink Floyd front man Syd Barrett is charted in this documentary, which tells the whole story from the formation of Pink Floyd, through Barrett's creative genius, his shocking slide into psychiatric illness and finally to his tragic and untimely death. Includes interviews with many who knew and worked with him.

Hvíti víkingurinn (The White Viking) (1991)

Norway in the 10th century. Askur, son of the powerful Thorgeir marries Embla, daughter of one of the few remaining landowners in Norway, in a pagan ceremony. King Olav, a ruthless Christian, wants to remove all traces of non-Christian beliefs and captures the two of them during the ceremony. In order to free Embla, Askur must go to Iceland and convert the people there to Christianity.

Grateful Dead England 1970 (The Lost Film)

The lost documentary of the Grateful Dead's first trip to England in May of 1970. As the story goes, the camera crew was dosed during filming and the project was abandoned. Leaving the film in a rough unfinished state.

The film features some great interviews and dialogue with the Dead, including the most extensive interview I have ever seen with Pigpen. There is a long sequence with Jerry and Micky before playing at the Hollywood 70 festival where they are clearly tripping. Jerry inparts some wisdom according to how the world looks for him. The fashion and the recording and music gear featured are a treat as are the amazing old cars in the background along with shots of London at the time.

The Hollywood Music Festival was held at Leycett in an area called Hollywood on the grounds of Ted Askey's Lower (pig) Farm at Finney Green, between Silverdale and Leycett, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England, on 23 and 24 May 1970. It was notable for the first performance of Grateful Dead in the UK and also for the performance of Jose Feliciano and Mungo Jerry, and featured such notable bands as Free, Ginger Baker's Air Force, Colosseum, Family, Black Sabbath and Traffic. The company responsible for the festival was Onista Ltd, who promptly went bankrupt unable to pay festival staff. Onista was an offshoot of Eliot Cohen's Red Bus company, with Ellis Elias and Elliot Cohen as the promoters.

Count Dracula (1977)

Count Dracula is a British television adaptation of the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Produced by the BBC (in the then standard video/film hybrid format), it first aired on BBC 2 on 22 December 1977. It is among the more faithful of the many adaptations of the original book.