documentary project by Patrizia Monzani
estimated running time: 52'
shooting format: DV
The idea is to realise a documentary about a “new” kind of emigrants: those who leave for a short period, and then decide not to go back or postpone the decision from year to year, without being able to explain why. Young well-educated people move and then move again and again, without getting younger.
Like me: I left Italy for a six-month university exchange and stayed more than 4 years in Paris, than I moved to Chemnitz, in Germany, and four years ago to Berlin and now to Barcelona. What happens to our roots, to our lives, in our interpersonal relationships? Has a new social status been born, is it what this new Europe wishes? When can we speak of integration and what does it mean? The fact of being a foreigner seems to grant more freedom, but non-integration is the other face of that freedom… I think that it is fundamental to ask ourselves which kind of changes, in the lives of people and in our society in general, are brought about by this new emigration flux; which kind of integration and enrichment turn out, in terms of thought and culture.
In order to inquire into the various modalities of living in a foreign country, I’ll not just collect and document different experiences (4 or 5 people), but moreover express them in a visual way. I intend to underline the common feelings the characters have about some places, towns, periods of their life, even if they lived in different countries, and they have taken different decisions about leaving, going back or staying where they are (decisions that of course are never definitive ones); but I’m also going to differentiate their worlds and visions of the world in a stylistic form. Places, cities, houses, objects will be present in the interviews and in the filmic narration, but always filtered through the character’s eyes.
estimated running time: 52'
shooting format: DV
The idea is to realise a documentary about a “new” kind of emigrants: those who leave for a short period, and then decide not to go back or postpone the decision from year to year, without being able to explain why. Young well-educated people move and then move again and again, without getting younger.
Like me: I left Italy for a six-month university exchange and stayed more than 4 years in Paris, than I moved to Chemnitz, in Germany, and four years ago to Berlin and now to Barcelona. What happens to our roots, to our lives, in our interpersonal relationships? Has a new social status been born, is it what this new Europe wishes? When can we speak of integration and what does it mean? The fact of being a foreigner seems to grant more freedom, but non-integration is the other face of that freedom… I think that it is fundamental to ask ourselves which kind of changes, in the lives of people and in our society in general, are brought about by this new emigration flux; which kind of integration and enrichment turn out, in terms of thought and culture.
In order to inquire into the various modalities of living in a foreign country, I’ll not just collect and document different experiences (4 or 5 people), but moreover express them in a visual way. I intend to underline the common feelings the characters have about some places, towns, periods of their life, even if they lived in different countries, and they have taken different decisions about leaving, going back or staying where they are (decisions that of course are never definitive ones); but I’m also going to differentiate their worlds and visions of the world in a stylistic form. Places, cities, houses, objects will be present in the interviews and in the filmic narration, but always filtered through the character’s eyes.
