JUST A ROCK

JUST A ROCK enters the everyday practice of Emanuele Ticozzi, a climber and boulder setter based in Val di Mello. The short film follows him as he identifies a line on a boulder, prepares the landing area and begins to study a possible path. Cleaning, observation and movement are presented as parts of the same work: before confronting the rock, he must make it legible, imagine a sequence and prepare the space for repeated attempts.

Ticozzi’s voice accompanies this process through a personal account. After focusing on progressing through grades and pursuing ever greater difficulty, the climber describes a change in perspective. His attention turns towards exploration, preparing boulders and remaining engaged in a session even when the result does not arrive immediately. The film therefore observes bouldering as an encounter with a physical problem, but also as an exercise in patience and invention.

On the line known as Il Kraken, the study moves through holds, knee positions, swings and precise toe placements. Each attempt produces information for the next: reaching a hold, taking a pause or making a correction becomes part of a line of reasoning carried out through the body. Intervals in the landscape and a return to the boulder after time away keep the story connected to the real duration of the practice, without reducing the journey to a sequence of athletic gestures.

The direction moves between details of hands and feet and wider views in which the body, the boulder, the crash pads and the surrounding space remain visible together. The cool light outdoors, the shadows beneath the overhang and selected black-and-white passages accompany the voiceover reflections. Close images show the precision of individual movements, while the wider frames place the attempt within the scale of the valley and convey the relationship between climber, rock and environment.

Luca Granfors directed this Italian sports documentary, with Emanuele Ticozzi as its central figure. Shot digitally in a 16:9 format and in Italian, JUST A ROCK runs for 20 minutes and 26 seconds and was completed in 2026. Its FilmFreeway submission also records a screening at Melloblocco in San Martino, Val Masino, on 7 May 2026. The work was entered in the fifth edition of the International Sport Film Festival under its original title.