Giuseppe Polerà

Assonnati sui caldi ginocchi – Sleeping on warm knees (2025)

“The strange joy of living”, as the Italian poet Sandro Penna wrote, or how to make love until the end of our days. A middle-aged Cuban couple live in the countryside surrounded by animals. They do not own many belongings but they do have large doses of passion. Filmmaker Giuseppe Polerà possesses a fragile ability, capturing intimacy to sense the nature of eroticism and pleasure.

– Miquel Martí Freixas

“Giuseppe Polerà chose an excerpt from a poem by Italian lyricist Sandro Penna as the title for his short film. However, he transposed the verse from its lyrical context into the harsh material reality of the Cuban countryside, where Leonardo and Mercedes coexist with farm animals. The middle-aged couple lives in extreme poverty, but not in sadness. Their private world, in contrast to their unchanging work routine, is imbued with warmth and joyful sensuality. Although they have almost nothing, they never cease to desire. This intimate portrait does not shy away from even the most physical expressions of love, which are also the most authentic expressions of the self in otherwise bleak social conditions.”

– Ji.hlava IDFF