At a time when the value of labor is increasingly reduced to numbers and graphs, the sensorial films of Yuri Ancarani make the art of working tangible. His documentaries are less focused on final results than on the rhythm and tactility of tasks, both uncommon and mundane. San Siro, Ancarani’s 2014 short, exemplifies the director’s interests in the toil that undergirds contemporary society. Shot at the eponymous football stadium, Milan’s mecca to the sport, the film builds a striking symphony out of activities performed by the staff, ranging from emptying the drainage system to repainting the penalty spot on the green grass. Absent is the visual spectacle of the match, felt only by the roars of the crowd, as Ancarani redirects viewers’ attention to those whose contributions often go unnoticed.

The filmmaker’s choreography of the everyday is already present in his previous works. With The Malady of Iron, a trilogy of documentary shorts, Ancarani finds beauty and poetry in highly specialized professions. Filmed among the alps of Carrara, Il capo (2010) contrasts the majestic awe of the landscape with the demanding duties of a marble quarryman, who maneuvers a mining excavator as dexterously as an orchestra conductor. This entwinement of nature and technology is also at the heart of Da Vinci (2012). As the camera lingers on a surgical procedure in which doctors operate on the human body via a robot, the operation resembles a hypnotic dance. Leaving dry land for the sea, Piattaforma Luna (2011) observes an even more intimate relationship between man and machine, following a group of divers who work, eat, and sleep inside a submarine.

In a fascinating detour, Ancarani’s feature debut and Locarno prizewinner The Challenge (2016) takes a look at the fabulously rich. For Qatari sheikhs with a passion for falconry, the pursuit of leisure takes on an otherworldly dimension. Detached from acts of labor, wealth is portrayed not as aspirational, but as uncanny. Alert to the hidden dynamics of diverse social spaces, Ancarani’s stunning tableaux of work and play turn rituals into cinematic gold.