"My intention is to provide the spectator with audiovisual experiences that are strong, incredible, to make them feel for a moment like they are in a world they don't know." Yuri Ancarani (Director)
A desert odyssey about power and challenge.
Custom-built sports cars, gold Harley-Davidsons, private auctions for high-priced falcons, pet leopards and private planes… Known for his flair for finding cinematic magnificence in ordinary places, Yuri Ancarini turns the Qatar desert into a majestic stage on which we witness the daily traditions of the emirate, traditions which boldly express man's relation to power. The Challenge gives us a sterile, distanced and artful glimpse of a typical Qatar weekend and its masculine microcosmos. Falconry, the 40 century-old tradition of the Arab world, delineates man's desire for dominion over a magnanimous nature with a cold intensity. This is a visual and artistic feast, a piece of work that leaves no question as to how the filmmaker's recent works have found themselves in museums like the Pompidou and the Guggenheim.
2016, TORINO, DUBAI
Italian visual artist Yuri Ancarani was born in 1972. His last five films have been shown and awarded at more than a hundred international festivals, including Locarno, Venice and Toronto, and in important museums around the world like the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Venice Biennale.
