Federico Ferrone

July, 1941. After the beginning of the German invasion, an Italian soldier, a veteran of the colonial wars, is sent to the Soviet front. As he remembers the fairy tales his Russian mother used to tell him, the train he is travelling in crosses Europe on its way to the vast Ukrainian plains, where the enemy and a cruel winter await him… (Based on the experiences of several Italian soldiers.)

Dumped by his girlfriend and finding himself stranded on different couches at friends’ places, Guido tries to transform his drift into an opportunity for a new beginning.

Pulcinella, a foolish servant, is sent from the depths of Mt. Vesuvius to present-day Campania to grant the last wish of poor shepherd Tommaso, who spent his whole life looking after a crumbling Bourbon estate: his mission is to save a young buffalo named Sarchiapone. Pulcinella takes the buffalo north and the two servants, man and beast, travel through a beautiful and lost Italy.

25 million Brazilians are of Italian origin. Almost all of them are the descendants of the Italians who left poor rural Italy at the end of the 1800's for a continent which promised riches and a better life. After only a century however, the direction of migration has been completely reversed. Italy, a century ago the place to escape from, has in time taken its place in the first world, the longed for final destination of immigrants throughout the world. The only thing which does not seem to change is the plight of those forced to migrate.

Mattia is 17 years old. Raised in a post-industrial province and experiencing an identity crisis, he is the son of a trade unionist and a housewife. Hypersensitive and fragile, he expresses himself through hip-hop music. The death of his older brother begins a period of great changes. Mattia leaves school, starts working in a factory and, through a North African colleague, approaches Islam. Prey to a lacerating restlessness, Mattia takes the path of progressive isolation and radicalization.

One country, two worlds. Montereau, suburb of Paris: in the lower part a normal urban centre; in the "upper city", on the hills, are the homes of Turkish immigrants, a population poised between two identities and cultures...

In the aftermath of Stalin’s death, three Italian communists engage in a trip to the Soviet Union to challenge their utopia with an 8mm camera. In 1957, Sauro, Luigi and Enzo all live in Alfonsine, a small town in Italy ruled like a miniature Soviet Union by the Italian Communist Party. As many communists in the West, they dream of the Soviet Union, and hope for the great Revolution. But with the wind of reform and self-criticism blowing through the Eastern Bloc after the death of Stalin the image of the Soviet Union as the workers’ paradise begins to crumble. They therefore decide to travel to the USSR to find out what is true and what is false in this supposed land of milk and honey. They film their entire journey with their 8mm camera. Through this invaluable personal archive, our film tells the hopes, disappointments and challenges of three young men faced with the reality of what seemed to be a utopia come true.

1882: the steamship Savoy sails across the Atlantic Ocean bound for Rio de Janeiro. On board, among the hundreds of Italian immigrants crammed into third class, there are two brothers from Campania who have escaped poverty and are seeking fortune in the New World: Pasquale and Gaetano Segreto. Their younger brother Alfonso, who will join them in 1898 with a Pathé camera, will be one of the pioneers of Cinema, the first to shoot films in Brazil. In a short time, at first selling newspapers and living by their wits, the brothers will become successful entrepreneurs, founding newspapers, amusement parks, cinemas and theatres. But their relationship, over the years, will slowly crumble. After Pasquale's death, a huge fire will definitively put an end to their dream and their empire.