Nearly 50 years later, Daniele Vicari retraces the journey the famous documentarist, Joris Ivens, took between 1959 and 1960 to film L'Italia non è un paese povero, a work commissioned by ENI president, Enrico Mattei. From the industrial areas around Gela and Termini Imerese in Sicily to Porto Marghera facing the Venetian lagoon, Ivens' invaluable repertory material guides Vicari on his route up the peninsula, revealing again the enormous changes that have taken place. Ivens captured the first signs of modern industrialization and economic growth, Vicari the consequences thereof. Today, Italy's concerns center around deindustrialization, alternative energy sources, land reclaim, immigration from the Third World and the expansion of the Chinese market. Il mio paese is a broad fresco of interviews and bold images, like the testimony of the environmentalist Gianfranco Bettin or the meeting with a family from Basilicata, which had brought the RAI censors' wrath on Ivens.
Il mio paese
«Italy is as difficult to understand as it is to narrate: political conflict, social and cultural upheaval, war, the economic miracle, environmental disaster. When I saw L'Italia non è un paese povero, the film seemed to offer some basic elements, a magnifying glass that made it clear where the country was headed: individual and social work. Work is unpoetic, raw, difficult to handle as narrative, yet it is also one of the few truly universal themes, together with love, friendship and a couple of others. Through work, humans change their surroundings and nature, mark the course of history, create their lifestyle».
Geographical areas and populations
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