Capo Testa - The Shape of Art

Before climbing, there is a shape to observe. Among the granite boulders of Capo Testa, Mauro Calibani looks for possibilities for movement and invites other climbers to engage with the same landscape. Capo Testa - The Shape of Art, a documentary directed by Davide Zaccone, follows this encounter between people, rock and sea, beginning with the relationship Calibani has developed with the headland over the years.

A former world bouldering champion and founder of the E9 brand, Calibani brings together athletes with different experiences and approaches to climbing. The project grows from a wish to share a place and explore its possibilities through the body. Climbing also becomes an opportunity to exchange ideas: each person brings their technical experience and their understanding of movement to the shapes of the granite.

The film combines archive footage, personal accounts and climbing on the rock. Memories of first encounters with Capo Testa introduce the relationship between this environment and those who visit it. The contributors describe a shift from competition towards exploration, in which choosing what to climb comes before the attempt and shapes the movements involved.

In conversation, the climbers describe terrain to interpret, beyond the instructions of a guidebook and established routes. Shapes, distances and possible footholds become part of their encounter with personal limits. The documentary follows the search for a line on the rock, placing climbs alongside the words with which the participants describe what they seek in this activity.

Aerial footage shows the headland and its relationship with the sea; on the ground, the climbers’ figures are set against the scale of the boulders. Details of hands alternate with wide views of rock faces. Through these different distances, the film brings the shape of the landscape and the positions of the body during a climb into the same account.

Produced by Mauro Calibani, the documentary runs for 34 minutes and 11 seconds. The reference to art in its title belongs to a question running through the project: how does a movement emerge from what someone sees in the rock? Through memory, personal accounts and exploration, Capo Testa - The Shape of Art presents the motivations of those who keep climbing in search of an answer.