S'Ardia
2026 · 12m · Italy
Directed by Billy Barraclough
Genres: documentary, historical, sports
Tones: contemplative, mythic, tender
In the small Sardinian town of Sedilo, horses gallop through the streets in a sacred ritual honoring Emperor Constantine the Great, as local rider Leandro Pes prepares to lead the race with his son Andrea.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Okay, so it's a sacred horse race in Sardinia—sounds like national geographic orthodoxy until you realize the film isn't interested in spectacle or exoticism, just the quiet weight of ritual passing between father and son; that refusal to sensationalize is genuinely weird.
Barraclough situates S'Ardia within a precise lineage of ethnographic cinema and intimate portraiture, using the Corsa dei Cavalli as both documentary subject and formal constraint—the mythic frame elevates what could be mere sports documentation into something that feels genuinely ceremonial.
The decision to hold on Leandro's face in the moments before the race, letting the ambient sound of the horses and crowd wash over static portraiture, does the heavy lifting—transforms a generational handoff into something tactile and irreplaceable on such a small scale.