Friday Film : Tomorrow and the Butterfly

Tomorrow and the Butterfly

Feature length Documentary : Directed by Allesandro Soetje

Butterflies don’t fly straight but they always get to where they want to.

From this observation, this tidbit of information, Tomorrow and The Butterfly takes us into the heart of a singular vision; business with sustainability that takes many forms and many routes to lead to an end goal of business that seeks something beyond simple profit. Something that will last and give back to the community in which the business operates.

The vision starts in the restless, searching mind of Davide Bolatti, chairman of  Davines family group companies, who constantly finds himself striving for that ‘something more’. Strolling in the evening glow of a golden sunset in Parma, Italy, where the family business started, Bolatti muses on how he never feels a sense of satisfaction, how he always feels that ‘we did not do enough.’ But this is no mere romantic daydreaming on his part. He seeks to translate his dreams into practical effort and reality which will benefit both his business and the environment and people it serves. So we see the blueprint for a Davines village where architecture is subordinated and integrated into the landscape. This village will be both his haven and the start of a wider project. It will fit his idea of the two concepts which inspire him: Beauty + Sustainability. From formulation to design,they are the driving forces for his projects because he asks, how can you have beauty without sustainability?

From this question Tomorrow and The Butterfly gives us glimpses into a range of businesses being supported by Davines representatives to develop their creativity alongside the vision of similar sustainability. From olive oil to hair salons to pop music, we get six vignettes of ambition, dreams and the sweat of making it all come together.

Tomorrow and The Butterfly is part inspirational movie, part short film promising a story worth telling in a feature, part corporate vision board and part heartwarming home video of family life.

The film pays tribute to the original founders of the Davines, Davide Bollati’s parents, Gianni and Silvana who named their company after their two children Davide and Stephania . Mama Bollati created the formulas for their products in the same pots that she used to make pasta! Today the company is an international one, practically worldwide. Over a lunch of home-made pasta, in one section of the film, parents and children share memories of times gone by and they could be any close knit Italian family. Davide runs the company, leading the talented Davines team, with everyone focused on a collective vision for a concept of business with values.

The most moving short film comes from the Davines social justice foundation work in Cambodia, the country of the forgotten genocide of Pol Pot. Sex trafficking survivors team up with the Italian company to train other survivors to work in a high-end hair salon. Like university students the young survivors of abuse can then move into other careers with confidence of having overcome their horrific histories. 

The whole film concludes with a neatly tied up ending worthy of an Agatha Christie adaptation and Davines is ready to move ahead with a sustainable new product.

The butterfly does indeed get where it wants to.