The Past Is a Foreign Land

Marco Buratti, known as the Alligator, is a former blues singer. Unjustly sentenced to seven years in prison, he lost his voice behind bars, but acquired the right knowledge to become an investigator.

A young Italian director encounters Nigerian musician and revolutionary Fela Kuti and for years chases the dream of making a film about him. He will never succeed but he will discovers something more important: a new idea of existence.

On July 19–21, 2001, over 200,000 people took to the streets of Genoa to protest against the ongoing G8 summit. Anti-globalization activists clashed with the police, with 23-year-old protester Carlo Giuliani shot dead after confronting a police vehicle. In the aftermath, the police organized a night raid on the Diaz high school, where around a hundred people between unarmed protesters—mostly students—and independent reporters who documented the police brutality during the protests had took shelter. What happened next was called by Amnesty International "the most serious breach of civil liberties in a democratic Western country since World War II."

The life and times of Pippo Fava, a Sicilian journalist who fought the Mafia through his local newspaper in the '70s and early '80s, meeting an untimely end.

Orlando and Lyse's is a fairy tale, a modern tale of an old man and a little girl who, unwittingly, find themselves facing the present together and the choices it brings, despite their being as distant as the rural life of a small inland village and the metropolitan life of a large European city can be.

During 2004 alone, 1400 people in Italy died at their workplace, 3.87 per day. Andrea is one of them.

On 8 August 1991, an Albanian ship carrying 20,000 people reached the port of Bari. The ship was called the “Vlora”. Mooring was difficult, and some of the passengers jumped overboard to swim to land, while many others chanted “Italia, Italia”, making the victory sign. On 7 August 1991, the ship, returning from Cuba, the “Vlora” had arrived at the port of Durrës with 10,000 tons of sugar in its hold. Work on unloading the sugar was underway when an enormous throng of thousands of people suddenly assailed the ship, forcing the captain to head for Italy. The next morning, waiting for the “Vlora” was an incredulous and stunned city and an empty football stadium where the Albanians were held before being sent back home. Twenty-one years have passed since that day. Most of the people who boarded that ship were sent back to Albania, but the crossings continued and many of them had another go. Today, 4.5 million foreigners live in Italy.

While the Calabrian mafia is spreading its influence in the early 70s, Antonio, son of the high-ranking 'Ndrangheta boss Giacomo Zagari, finds himself killing more and more frequently, ultimately realising that he isn't suited to this extreme lifestyle. While his generation rises up in factories, universities and public squares, Antonio finds the strength to defy his father, rejecting his legacy.

The film is about two worlds, different and parallel, living together in the same territory: the Gran Sasso of Italy. The contact between the two realities occurs through the characters of Max, a nuclear physics researcher who works tirelessly in the laboratory located in the belly of the mountain, and the shepherd Bajram. In fact, the shepherd walks on the physicist's head but neither of them knows it. Inside the laboratory the most advanced craft of mankind is being developed, above the mountain, on the other hand, there are poor immigrants doing the oldest work in the world. Gran Sasso is, according to the director, the synthetic image of globalization.

Eli has four children, an unemployed husband and a job with an almost impossible commute. Vale is single and makes ends meet by working in clubs as a dancer. Tied by a profound emotional bond of true sisterhood, the two women's lives are two sides of the same coin, but their mutual solidarity isn’t always enough to lighten the load of their difficult circumstances.

In search of purpose, 17-year-old Claudio helps easygoing mechanic Stefano build a car capable of winning a street race that could solve his financial problems, but gets himself involved with the latter's former girlfriend.

After a terrorist attack in Rome, the government urges the population not to leave their houses: several couples clash during isolation. Shot during the first COVID-19 lockdown.

A journey from the south to the north of Italy covering the track of the legendary Joris Ivens documentary "L'Italia non è un paese povero".