GEORGE  FINLAY RAMSAY



PIECES

      Answers arrive in the dark, life is made up of quark
      Flesh, Wax & Glass
      Empedocles Syndrome
      Nursted, from the sleep side
      Family Fugue
      CASTOROCENE
      Raven’s Reprise
      Trickster Strategies
      Book of Regrets: For Kamchatka
      Book of Regrets: For Etna
      V is for Volvo, Vulva, Volcano
       VOLCANO LOVER
       I ONLY DO REAL THING







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Flesh, Wax & Glass

16mm to digital, 38 mins, colour, sound, 2024



Writer, director & editor 
George Finlay Ramsay
Cinematogrpahper 
Ruben Woodin Dechamps
Score
Coby Sey
Sound recordist Daniel Rajmon
Additional voiceover
Diana Lola Posani
Supervising Editor
Chiara Armentano
Assistant camera & critical support 
Alasdair Asmussen Doyle
Curatorial support
Felice Moramarco
Producers & production support 
George Finlay Ramsay, Shireen Taylor, Antonia Shaw, Saturno Maione, Francesco Maione, Silvana Maione, Alessio Maione, Felice Moramarco
Interpreter
Susanna Mendicino
Executive producer
 Martin Mazanec
Writing coach 
Gilbert Ramsay
Double bass & bass viole John Henry Baker
 
‘Love is repletion and the abyss and the fullness of the sea’
Marguerite Porete


Charting three years of a Southern Italian bloodletting rite, and one family's process of mourning, this is psychedelic ethnography that grapples with love, doubt, and religious devotion in the 21st century.

Part I, The Age of the Father (2023), follows Saturno, a Calabrian lorry driver undertaking his 33rd Vattienti procession, where men flagellate their legs with glass-embedded disks of cork. Shot on 16mm, the film presents a tender portrait of ritual, weaving Holy Week with imagery of the Stromboli volcano and medieval Christian symbolism. Shortly after filming, Saturno passed away, shaping the sequel.

Part II, The Age of the Son (2024), revisits the rite through Saturno’s sons, focusing on inheritance and the entanglement of filmmaker and subject. Francesco, Saturno’s son, performs the ritual for the first time since his father’s death. The film incorporates a town screening of The Age of the Father, alongside staged scenes of Francesco carrying a mirror and watching Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew, with poetic narration and music by Coby Sey.

The final part, The Age of the Holy Spirit (2025/2026), will shift focus to Silvana, Saturno’s widow, and the often-overlooked role of women in the Vattienti tradition. The three parts will then be edited together into a ~ 70 min single channel film, completing the trilogy’s meditation on devotion, loss, and legacy.