It is rare when the locations in a film go beyond providing a background for the characters and become an integral part of the story, even conditioning its events. However, this is the case for the picturesque settings of the Aosta Valley that accompany the story of the lifelong friendship between Pietro and Bruno, the main characters in The Eight Mountains (Le otto montagne). Pietro comes from the city; Bruno is the last child in an isolated mountain village. Over the years, Bruno (Alessandro Borghi) remains faithful to his mountains while Pietro (Luca Marinelli) comes and goes.
“We started scouting for locations in July 2020, a year before principal photography. We wanted to give the two directors – Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch – a range of options, so we travelled the entire valley and presented them with a long list of possibilities – said Giorgio Vigna, Aosta Valley location manager – in the end, they wanted the places that inspired Paolo Cognetti so they chose Val d’Ayas”.
Cognetti, who wrote the novel on which the film is based on, had already shown the directors the places that inspired him and they had spent several months there to truly absorb their essence. The main actors did the same, also learning mountain activities such as milking cows. The mountain village of Graines (which Cognetti calls Grana in the book) was the location for the film shoot: “a place of very few inhabitants, whose residences, partially restructured, are rented out to summer visitors looking for peace and hiking”. Exactly what Pietro’s parents do every year; their accommodation in the film is actually the village’s little museum which housed the old school and dairy. The building belongs to the Consorteria, a community property fund traditional to the Alpine regions, especially prevalent in Valle d’Aosta. Giorgio Vigna tells the story: “it housed a primary school until the end of the 1960s. The Consorteria found many things inside, the room where the schoolmistress lived, the upper floor where the village’s photographer lived. The Consorteria prepared the rooms and put objects on display, transforming it into a little museum that opens in the summer for special events. A few months before principal photography began, restructuring and expansion work started, thanks to European funding. In exchange for use of the location, the production funded consolidation and restoration work”.
The production also funded other work. A privately owned alpine hut in ruins, located in the area of Merendioux, served as the building that Pietro inherits from his father and rebuilds with Bruno’s help, Barma Drola. “It was in a very picturesque position, divided into two different buildings. The production committed to restructuring one part, using local artisans, leaving the other in ruins to film the start of the rebuilding. These ancient buildings situated at high altitudes are protected by the cultural authorities – explained Vigna – and restructuring work must follow official guidelines. When this place was selected as a set, principal photography was about to start so the production accelerated the building work, with the help of the film commission, respecting both the official rules and the needs of the production”.
One of the first places Cognetti took Felix and Charlotte in 2019 was Frudieres lake, situated about 2 hours walk from Graines. In a valley filled with lakes, this was the directors’ choice for Lake Grenon which plays a key role in the story. Some of the key moments of the ice expedition were shot instead at Pian di Verra in Champoluc, facing Mount Rosa. The scene recounts a significant moment in Pietro’s childhood and is emblematic of the difficulties when shooting at high altitude: “Shooting in the mountains requires a huge security and safety effort, the help of Alpine guides and the use of 4x4 vehicles, in some cases helicopter assistance was used to move material and crew. From a logistics perspective, shooting this film was a truly wonderful challenge”. The effort behind it did not go unnoticed, the film was awarded the Jury Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.