Shown as part of the Animal Nature Future Film Festival 2025, Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari (2024) directed by Massimo D’Anolfi and Martina Parenti, is a docu-encyclopedia, divided into three acts, each of which deals with a single subject: animals, plants and stones.

Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari (2024) is an encyclopedic documentary divided into three intentionally ‘anti-narrative’ acts of about 70 minutes each that deal with specific subjects: animals, plants, stones. The acts are closely interconnected because they create a unique dramaturgical development through three different staging devices. With the term encyclopaedia, we do not mean a long list of single descriptions in alphabetical order, nor a system for embracing human knowledge.

Our film is a tribute to the ‘unknown’, and in some ways alien, world of animals, plants and stones which we too often take for granted but with which we should actually be in constant dialogue since it constitutes the essential part of our existence on planet Earth. It recounts our own stories and preserves our knowledge. The film’s dramaturgical journey unfolds in three movements that narrate humankind’s acknowledgement in its responsibility towards nature; the procedures for the maintenance and care of nature itself, and finally the process of rediscovery and the transmission of fundamental common values. The respective interpreters of each act are therefore animals, plants, and stones. We observe them in their movements, growth and transformation. We thus renounce the idea of a plot because through anti-narrative in its truest sense, namely the freedom to recognize the infinite references that nature offers us, we can fully appreciate the stories.

Moreover, in this tripartite vision, each act of the film is a tribute to a specific genre of documentary cinema. Bestiaries is based on found footage and on the how and why cinema has obsessively represented animals; Herbaria, on the other hand, is an observational documentary inside the Botanical Garden of Padua and Lapidaries is an industrial and emotional film on the transformation of stone into collective memory. A chorus of protagonists, through multifarious voices and sounds, portrays us humans.

Total Runtime: 208 mins.

For the full program of the 2025 Animal Nature Future Film Festival and more screening details, please visit our website: https://www.anfff.org

Doors open at 17.00, for a 18.00 start.

Refreshments will be available in our licensed cafe/bar.

TICKETS & PRICING

Tickets: Standard £12 and Concession £10
Advance tickets may be purchased from Ticketlab, or direct from the Museum by calling 020 7840 2200 in office hours.