Electronic Press Kit
Cinematography EPK - Holy Wood Dust
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About
Holy Wood Dust is a 2026 documentary directed by Victor Kossakovsky and photographed by Gianmarco Donaggio. Created in collaboration with renowned botanist Stefano Mancuso, the film takes audiences on an immersive journey into the world of trees, exploring their extraordinary capacity to perceive, communicate, learn, and form connections. Through a deeply sensory cinematic language, it invites viewers to reconsider humanity's relationship with the vegetal world.
Donaggio's collaboration with Kossakovsky began in 2016 in Norway, when, at the age of 24, he joined the camera department on Gunda. Their creative partnership continued with Architecton, followed by Donaggio's contribution of the film's microscopic cinematography on Trillion.
Holy Wood Dust marks a significant milestone in their long-standing collaboration: Donaggio's first feature film as Director of Photography for Kossakovsky, bringing a decade of shared visual research to its fullest expression.
Cinematography
For Holy Wood Dust, Gianmarco Donaggio developed a visual approach that moves between monumental landscapes and microscopic worlds, inviting audiences to encounter trees as living protagonists rather than scenery.
Working across macro, probe, and microscope optics alongside large-format digital cinematography, he designed and manufactured bespoke motion-control systems capable of operating at 10× to 20× magnification—a scale at which even the smallest vibration becomes visible.
In 2025, Donaggio dedicated six months to researching, engineering, and filming the film's microscopic world. Based primarily at Manifatture Digitali Cinema in Prato, Tuscany, he developed three custom robotic camera systems in collaboration with Chris Field, visual engineer behind the BBC's Green Planet. These tools made it possible to capture the slow processes of tree germination with a level of precision impossible through conventional cinematography.
The research was carried out in close dialogue with Stefano Mancuso and his team at the University of Florence, whose botanical expertise informed both the scientific accuracy of the filmed processes and the development of the visual methodology itself.
While the film's microscopic sequences were developed through months of laboratory research, the principal photography demanded an equally adaptive approach in the field. Working across forests, mountains, cities, and remote natural environments, the production employed a wide range of filmmaking tools; including drones, helicopters, U-cranes, and bespoke motion-control systems to translate the changing scale of the natural world into a coherent visual language.
Donaggio built the camera package around the Red V-Raptor X, choosing it for its ability to accommodate radically different configurations while consistently delivering 8K, 48 fps large-format imagery. Whether mounted on aerial platforms, crane systems, or custom-built rigs, the camera became the backbone of a production that moved continuously between expansive landscapes and intimate observations, allowing the film to shift seamlessly from the monumental to the microscopic without compromising visual continuity.
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Short Bio
Gianmarco Donaggio is an award-winning director, cinematographer, and audiovisual artist whose work bridges cinema, experimental image-making, and visual research.
A member of the European Film Academy and a Berlinale Talents alumnus, his work has been presented at major international film festivals, museums, and cultural institutions across Europe.
His practice is characterized by the construction of custom optical systems, experimentation with unconventional recording techniques, and a sustained exploration of perception through moving images.