by Daniele Cini, Elisabetta Lodoli
Italia, 2012, 52'
SGI Società Generale dell'Immagine (Torino)
With the occasion of the centenary celebrations of the Unification of Italy., the big international exhibition of Turin, the so called Italia '61, has been a global event joint by more than 4 milions visitors from all over the world, including personalities like Ted Kennedy, Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney.
Italia '61 was the image and the promise of a modern Country, whose industrial capital was settled in Turin and represented by Fiat. But today, 50 years later and in the 150th year's celebration of the Unification of Italy, what of that futuristic dream is left and how much is that boom years' promise of modernity fulfilled?
The answers to those questions are the story's structure of this passage of time.
Our characters will lead us from the present to the past, by following symbolic sentences and places of that exhibition, in order to see the two historical times' differences and to build comparisons between them.
The contemporary visual story of our characters will be completed by extensive and impressive records of that time.
Our characters' stories will be also joint by some account of cultural, political and entreprenerual personalities of Turin.
Drawing near the celebrations of the 150th year of the Unification of Italy, in a time of economical and cultural crisis, it strikes the lack of any representative project of it, even just visual. Even though the 150th year celebration is not as important as the 1st centenary, we thought that an event like “Italia '61” in Turin was an important topic - especially for the young - to remember, in order to compare those two Italies: the Sixties' one, in its economical boom, and the nowadays Italy, on the threshold of recession.
What was the sense of “Italia '61”? What of the futuristic dream and modernity promise of that growing country does remain today?
Our purpose is to revisit that experience with the present look, establishing links between past stories and present lives of men and women who did live “Italia '61”.
In this documentary we are going to restore the same atmosphere and charm of “Italia '61”, thanks to those images: coloured postcards, super-8 films, refined modern graphic posters, Istituto Luce and Rai's newsreels.