Carlo, Carlo!’ Maria’s lyrical voice carries across the wooded hills, calling her 88-year-old husband to come in for dinner. But Carlo isn’t listening. He’s busy in the forest, his trusty dog beside him, searching for truffles.
This evocative scene — drenched in the golden light of autumn — is brilliantly captured in a new film, The Truffle Hunters, by directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw. The American film-makers spent three years immersing themselves in the time-honoured ways of life in the villages of Piedmont, in the north of , to understand the mysteries of truffle-hunting.
Now released in UK cinemas, its artfully shot depiction of a place seemingly lost in time has already won accolades at Sundance, Cannes and other prestigious film festivals worldwide.
The sweet life: terbaik sumatera The peaceful village of Pella where you’ll find the super-stylish bolthole Casa Fantini
Its focus is a handful of men — old in years but young in spirit — who live around the tiny villages of Santo Stefano, Belbo and Roddino. Spending their days and nights hunting for the elusive white truffle, they are guided by an age-old culture and training passed down through generations, as well as by the noses of their cherished Lagotto dogs.
‘These communities still live in the world of their youth,’ says director Kershaw. ‘They listen to the same music they’ve listened to all their lives, they work the land they grew up on, they hunt for truffles in the same forests they’ve always known. It’s a very beautiful, simple life.’
As well as revealing a cast of often eccentric characters, The Truffle Hunters sets a painterly vision of Piedmont — of fairytale forests, of ramshackle but welcoming villages and of cosy homes where vats of pasta bubble away atop wood-burning stoves.
A scene from The Truffle Hunters film, which follows a handful of men who hunt for the elusive white truffle in Piedmont
It’s also an enigmatic introduction to the all-encompassing passion surrounding food which dominates life in this region.
Food is everything in Piedmont. Italy’s second-largest region after Sicily, it is framed by the Alps in the north, then sweeps south to encapsulate pastoral rolling hills, scenic lakes and vine-covered terrain.
The major city is Turin, but gourmet travellers will be most familiar with its food-focused towns such as Alba, Asti, Barolo and Bra.
Here truffles are sold for thousands of pounds, sparkling wines — some say comparable to champagne — are carefully cultivated and blood-red grapes are grown to produce classic vintages.