Presentazione

Italy/ Colour

Genre Documentary
Director Maria Silvia Bazzoli
Screenwriter Maria Silvia Bazzoli
Production company Agherose
Website agherose.it

October 1991: a few months after the outbreak of hostilities in the Balkans, in Cervignano del Friuli, a small town a few kilometres from the Slovenian border, a refugee centre was set up for refugees from ex-Yugoslavia. In the government authorities’ original planning the refugee centre – set up in the unused ex-military barracks – was in response to a momentary “humanitarian emergency”, but the prolonged duration of the Yugoslavian tragedy soon transformed it into a long-term residence for families, men, women, elderly people, children, young deserters and conscientious objectors, of different origins and different religions. Between 1991 and 1997 more than 1500 persons passed through the ex-barracks of Monte Pasubio. The more fortunate among them stayed just a few days whilst waiting to move on, others stayed for weeks, months, or even years. There were also those who never left Friuli, not even after having left the camp. Of that “passage of people”, except for the old crumbling barracks building due to be demolished, the town seems to have kept no trace whatsoever, as if the community, once the centre was finally closed, had wanted to quickly erase a complex and difficult chapter from its history. However beneath the coating of a collective repression of facts lay many personal accounts and stories that have resisted the onslaught of time and oblivion. As their storyline unfolds a “missing story” emerges, an “extra-ordinary” account of the utopia of encountering solutions at a time in which Italy was just beginning to face up to the challenge of a new mass phenomenon: immigration.

Supported for the Development and Distribution

Credits

Regia/Director: Maria Silvia Bazzoli
Sceneggiatura/Screenwriter: Maria Silvia Bazzoli
Fotografia/DOP: Debora Vrizzi
Montaggio/Editor: Sculier Francoise
Società di produzione/Production company: Agherose