Documentary Screening + Director Q&A: Mantènnere: Holding the Sacred Sound (2025)

On Tuesday, October 20, the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) will host a screening of the documentary Mantènnere: Holding the Sacred Sound (2025). The event begins at 7:45pm and a Q&A with the director will follow.

Please see the information below and the attached poster for more information and to RSVP!

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Mantènnere: Holding the Sacred Sound — Film Screening + Q&A

A documentary by Diego Pani 

(2025, 52 min, in Italian, Sardinian, and English with English subtitles)

Tuesday, October 20, 2026 

Screening at 7:45 PM

ImprovLab, MacKinnon Building, Room 108, University of Guelph (87 Trent Lane)

Free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served in the lobby before the screening.

Join us for a screening of Mantènnere: Holding the Sacred Sound, followed by a Q&A with director Dr. Diego Pani, who will be in attendance. 

“Mantènnere” explores the cultural and social significance of traditional multipart singing in Santu Lussurgiu, Sardinia, focusing on the transmission of this practice between two generations of singers. The 52-minute documentary follows the Cuncordu ‘e su Rosariu, a singing group which has accompanied Holy Week rituals since the 1970s, and Sos Zovanos de Su Rosariu, a younger group gradually assuming this role. Set against the backdrop of the mediatization of traditional music, the film highlights the impact of numerous research campaigns conducted in the village from the 1980s to the present, which have shaped the evolving identity of these musical traditions. Told from the perspective of a Sardinian ethnomusicologist from this village, the film captures the intimate emotional connection to these sacred singing practices. “Mantènnere” ultimately examines how ritual, music-making, and community are interwoven, questioning how tradition is preserved and transformed in the face of external scholarly and media influences.

About the Director
Diego Pani is an ethnomusicologist, multi-award-winning ethnographic filmmaker, and musician from Sardinia. His work investigates how music and media connect people to particular social and cultural worlds. His research focuses on the mediatization and heritagization of traditional music, as well as the ethics of music production within DIY punk and hardcore scenes. He holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Memorial University of Newfoundland and recently served as a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at the University of New Mexico. He has conducted fieldwork in Sardinia and the United States and directed five ethnographic documentaries, including Mantènnere: Holding the Sacred Sound (2025). Since 2018, Pani has led UNESCO-related initiatives safeguarding Sardinian multipart singing at ISRE. He is currently co-authoring a book on the subject and completing Comanche Highway, a documentary on New Mexico’s Genízaro community, and This Is the Best Place, a forthcoming UNM Press photo book on Albuquerque’s DIY punk scene. Outside his research, he sings with King Howl and produces records and concerts through the DIY outfit Talk About Records.

Co-presented by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation; Suplex Music; and the School of Languages and Literatures and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph 

RSVP Here: https://forms.gle/7SSjk8JtNVmTbS1n9