The Eight Mountains

The Eight Mountains is a 2022 drama film co-directed by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, who co-adapted the screenplay from the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti. The film depicts a friendship between two men who spend their childhood together in a remote Alpine village and reconnect later as adults. The title is a reference to the concept in Buddhism and ancient Indian cosmology that the world is composed of nine mountains and eight seas, specifically eight concentric circular mountain ranges separated from one another by eight seas, with the ninth and tallest mountain, Mount Meru, at the center. The film premiered in competition at the 75th Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2022, where it won the Jury Prize tying with EO. The next year it was awarded the David di Donatello for Best Film. Plot In the summer of 1984, Pietro, an 11-year-old from Turin, and his mother Francesca rent a house in a village called Grana in the Italian Alps. There they meet Bruno, the last kid remaining in the village; estranged from his parents, he lives with his uncles and aunt. Pietro and Bruno quickly become friends and while the summer away. Months later, Pietro’s father Giovanni arrives as well and the trio go on a hike. One day, Bruno informs Pietro that Pietro’s parents have offered to adopt Bruno so he can go to school in Turin, and his uncle has agreed. Pietro, fed up with city life and believing Bruno should not be uprooted from his world, protests this decision. Bruno’s father soon takes him away to work for the summer and they do not see each other again for some time. Five years later the 16-year-old Pietro and Bruno coincidentally meet at a bar, neither speaking to the other. Pietro's family returns to Grana but it’s not the same without Bruno. Soon, Pietro stops visiting the mountains and clashes between him and his father lead them to grow apart.