Simone Soldani

A documentary on the director’s career, featuring interviews with friends, collaborators, and filmmakers.

Giving voice to the voiceless: this was the revolution of Giorgio Lolli, a former worker and trade unionist from Bologna, self-taught technician of free radio stations. During his 40 years in Africa, he built over 500 radio stations from Togo to Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso. With his company Solaire, he was the first to install FM radios using transmitters that anyone could afford, giving a voice to communities in the most isolated areas. The film follows his ‘disciple’ Abdrahmane Cissoko as he works to set up a radio station for young migrants on the border between Senegal, Mali and Mauritania. It ends with the birth of Radio Solaire Livorno, a pirate radio station for the multi-ethnic community in Tuscany.

The pianist Simone Soldati – who has devoted much of his attention over the years to the music of Luigi Boccherini – and the Quartetto della Scala (Francesco Manara and Daniele Pascoletti, violins; Simonide Braconi, viola; Massimo Polidori, cello) perform two of the Lucca-born composer’s quintets for piano and strings.