The Island of Pandas (Fiat Pandas, That Is)

The Italian island of Pantelleria covers simply over 32 sq. miles. It sits within the sea like a pebble flicked off the soccer ball of Sicily after it was struck by Italy’s boot. It is a spot of nice pure magnificence, all sizzling springs and vistas of the Mediterranean, with a inhabitants of scarcely greater than 7500 folks.

However folks do not type many of the inhabitants right here, as a result of the volcanic island can also be dwelling to the best variety of Fiat Pandas per sq. mile. It is an uncommon phenomenon that is led Fiat to launch a documentary concerning the folks and the Pandas of Pantelleria.

The documentary is named Pandelleria, and should you’re seeking to broaden your horizons with a foreign-language movie, then skip the Oscar-winning documentaries and provides this 30-minute quick a glance.

“What’s with all of the Pandas, you ask?” says one of many documentary’s topics, a winemaker and mechanic. “We disassemble them day by day, we now have one million Pandas [on] the island. We’ve got solely Pandas right here.”

Maybe not fairly one million, however Pantelleria is really infested with Pandas. All three generations. Watching a boxy Eighties Panda 4×4 getting flung down a rural gravel street in actually Italian vogue (carrying a cargo maintain stuffed with grapes for the wine press) helps the viewer begin to perceive why that is. Pandas are small, economical, simply repaired, and surprisingly robust. Simply the factor for all times on an remoted island the place self-reliance is essential.

The documentary was directed by award-winning Italian filmmaker Giovanni Troilo, who beforehand received approval for his portrayal of the folks of Rome and those that stay within the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. The movie encompasses a sequence of vignettes of farmers, foragers, mechanics, a restaurateur, a beekeeper, and even a non secular information to indicate how the Panda is just part of on a regular basis life on the island.

Vacationers to Pantelleria are all however assured a Panda-centric expertise. It is because the one mannequin of automobile that native rental companies inventory is—you guessed it—the Panda.

Launched in 1979, the Panda wore bodywork penned by Giorgetto Giugiaro. It was amongst his most beloved designs.

Easy, sq., and powered by a pint-size engine, the unique Panda—like people who adopted it—was unpretentious and sensible. Greater than 4 million Pandas had been offered all through the first-generation automobile’s 23-year manufacturing run. Three generations in and greater than 40 years later, the Fiat Panda stays one of many best-selling autos in Italy.

The message of Pandelleria is much less concerning the Pandas of Pantelleria and extra concerning the lifetime of the native islanders. Quite than taking heart stage, the Panda serves as a relentless backdrop. On Pantelleria, Panda possession is just like the solar, just like the saltwater, just like the wine and music on the finish of a day’s work. It isn’t only a automobile, it is part of life on Pantelleria.