Christo's floating pontoons on Lake Iseo land in cinema. Walking on the water in theaters in June

Titled Christo. Walking on the Water and is the film that brings to the cinema The Floating Piers, the work that Christo created in 2016 on Lake Iseo: the documentary, which is part of the I Wonder Stories series, is directed by Andrey Paounov, is produced by Unipol Biografilm Collection, is made in collaboration with Biografilm Festival - International Celebration of Lives, Regione Emilia-Romagna, Unipol Gruppo, Sky Arte HD, Radio2 and MYmovies.it, and will arrive in Italian theaters from June 16 to 19 (on June 16, moreover, there will be the official presentation at the Biografilm Festival - International Celebration of Lives in Bologna).

Walking on the Water recounts the making of The Floating Piers by Christo (Gabrovo, 1935): the Bulgarian artist had conceived the work decades earlier together with his wife Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (Casablanca, 1935 - New York, 2009), harboring a desire to create a floating bridge capable of uniting the shores of the lake. “Ten years after the death of his wife and artistic partner Jeanne-Claude,” reads the film’s synopsis, "Christo realizes The Floating Piers, a project they had conceived together many years before, a floating bridge that would unite the shores of Lake Iseo. CHRISTO - Walking on Water presents the construction of one of the grandest works of art ever created. Against the backdrop of this epic and memorable folly - the complex negotiations somewhere between art and politics, the engineering challenges, the logistical feats, not to mention the sheer force of nature, illustrated by breathtaking vistas - we see an artist’s dream unfold and get closer to the man pursuing it: Christo."

Christo and Jeanne-Claude had first thought of a floating bridge in 1969, when they proposed the project for the Rio de la Plata in Argentina, but were unsuccessful. Little luck was also had by The Daiba Project, floating walkways conceived in 1996 and designed to join two islands in Tokyo Bay: again, the work was not realized. Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s dream began to take shape in 2014, when the artist visited lakes in northern Italy with his team and found Lake Iseo to be suitable for the project. Having found acceptance and cooperation from the Italian authorities, they moved on to the implementation stages: the project would include 3 kilometers of floating walkways and 2.5 kilometers of fabric-covered pedestrian roads. Testing began in Germany in the summer of 2014, and in February the following year the director of operations, Vladimir Yavachev, initiated a full-scale test on the Black Sea, until final approval from the Italian authorities came in April 2015. In the spring of that year, fabrication of the project’s various components began, and they were assembled in the winter of 2015. Work continued through the spring of 2016 until, on June 15, the walkways began to be fully covered with yellow Dahlia fabric. On June 18, The Floating Piers could finally open to the public and remain open until July 3: it would be walked by 1.2 million visitors.

“I have always been fascinated by Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s uncompromising vision of how art should be conceived, financed and produced - in total independence and with the sole purpose of seeking the joy and beauty of things,” says director Paounounov. “Regardless of how the audience experienced or explained an installation of thousands of colorful balloons, countless umbrellas in Japan and California, or the Reichstag envelope, these are ultimately works based on the dreamlike vision of artists with a unique dedication and sense of aesthetics.” Paonuov worked on the documentary for eighteen months, he says, "staying in daily contact with the protagonist, who worked (and in this case is understood to have lived) on different stories in the editing process. So the video material I had at my disposal, although shot in the past, became what I used to sketch the portrait of Christo and his work, beginning to understand him from our daily interactions. During the process, I continued my research, from YouTube videos and footage taken with smartphones and posted by tourists and passersby, to taking over all the additional material. Christo is one of the most informative figures of our time, so the skill required here was not so much to capture his image, but to sculpt it. This was a nice departure-and liberation-from the process of my previous films, where I had full control over everything from conception to final product. But it also makes one reflect on the times we live in, where information in its raw form abounds and the challenge becomes turning it into something authentic. My personal conclusion about this experience is that for Christo, art is a process, not an end result. The Floating Piers is the icing on the cake, but the real excitement comes from imagining the possibilities, overcoming bureaucracy, taming the forces of nature. The title of the film, Christo. Walking on Water has a double meaning. It is a reference to the experience offered by The Floating Piers, but it also represents my ultimate goal: to make a film that can offer every viewer the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of Christo and his creation."

Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude created some of the most original and visually exciting works of the 20th and 21st centuries. The two artists began collaborating in 1961. Their large-scale projects include Wrapped Coast, Little Bay, Australia (1968-69); Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970-72); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972-76); and Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Florida (1980-83); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975-85); The Umbrellas, Japan-USA (1984-91); Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin (1971-95); Wrapped Trees, Riehen, Switzerland (1997-98); The Gates, Central Park, New York (1979-2005); The Floating Piers, Lake Iseo (2014-16). Their work is illustrated in various museums and galleries around the world, including the Guggenheim and Metropolitan museums in New York, the Tate in London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Andrey Paonuov is a Bulgarian writer and director, known for his nonfiction films, including Georgi and the Butflies (winner of the Silver Wolf, IDFA 2004), The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories (Cannes Critics Week 2007) and The Boy Who Was King (screened at the Toronto International Film Fesival). His films have screened at more than 150 international film festivals and received more than 40 awards. His first feature film, January, is currently in pre-production.

Christo's floating pontoons on Lake Iseo land in cinema. Walking on the water in theaters in June

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