The film recounts the bond of friendship between Primo Levi and Sandro Delmastro. In the lecture halls of the University of Chemistry, something attracts them and they become friends. Chemistry and love for the mountains lead them to forge an ironclad friendship that will later lead them to the fight against Nazi fascism. Through interviews with relatives, historians and scholars; from historical archives to foundations, that friendship, so strong but so brief, that Primo Levi will always remember, is reconstructed. "Sandro Delmastro was a man so solid, so compact, so sure of himself, sure of his choices, that he would have exercised an attraction, and a fascination in any environment, even today." Sandro Delmastro died in March 1944 killed by the fascists as a partisan. The documentary is a moving tribute to the indomitable spirit of friendship.
After reading Primo Levi's short story 'Ferro', I became so engrossed that I started to read up on the characters mentioned; I got in touch with family members and visited the archives, and before long I was inside the story. In Primo Levi's story 'Ferro', the friendship between Sandro Delmastro and Primo Levi is described. The value of freedom, which the two friends affirm in their concrete actions, is recounted. Historical research and the support of texts left by the protagonists of that time mark the passage of time; in those places they bring back the suffering of their fates. When one opens the private archives of photographs and letters of the time, one becomes involved and is part of something that has remained unresolved, a friendship interrupted, a life broken, an inescapable destiny.
Lorenzo Terranera (Illustrazioni, Animazioni); Ugo Laurenti (Colorist); Joy Giovannelli (Coordinamento di produzione); Walter Magri (Assistente operatore)
Roberta Mori, Sara Cagliero, Claudia Valabrega, Enrico Delmastro, Claudio Delmastro, Paolo Cognetti, Fabrizio Salmoni, Marco Revelli, Sebastiano Bazzini, Manuel Zigante, Barbara Berruti