Synopses taken from the catalogue of the 65th Venice International Film Festival

published by Electa

Tariq Tapa

Zero Bridge

Dilawar, a rebellious seventeenyear- old Kashmiri boy, lives on the outskirts of Srinagar city with his strict uncle, a mason who took in Dilawar after he was abandoned by his adoptive mother. To help make ends meet, Dilawar has recently quit school to become an apprentice to his uncle’s construction crew. Dilawar hates his current life and secretly plans to leave his uncle to join his adoptive mother in Delhi. To do so, he supplements his income by participating in some shady activities: taking money to do math assignments from his old school classmates, or picking pockets in the city markets. While on an errand at the shipping office, Dilawar meets Bani, a bright young woman who recently returned to Srinagar after completing her studies in America. Although Dilawar recognizes Bani as one of his recent pickpocket victims, Bani does not recognize him. Over the course of many visits to the shipping office, Dilawar warms up to Bani. He eventually enlists her help with the math assignments although Bani is unaware that she is helping him earn extra money. They enjoy each other’s company, and their friendship gently grows. Meanwhile, Dilawar continues his illegal activities, undeterred. The consequences of his actions eventually cause havoc in Dilawar and Bani’s lives, threatening their friendship and both of their futures.

Laura Angiulli

Verso Est

Verso Est is the result of a long journey. At its center Bosnia with its burdensome past, and a present that is both uncertain and controversial. Three cities in that country—Sarajevo, Mostar, and Srebrenica—advancing different stimuli their contact with the people and their history, both past and present. In Sarajevo, the capital, memory was substantiated with the contradictory reflections in its current political structure, thus giving rise to consequent opportunities for reflection and debate. Mostar is embodied in the old bridge, both symbol and heart of the slow pulse of a social and political life that is unable to heat the peripheral wings of a city still shattered by the reality of Croatian and Muslim ghettos. Finally, Srebrenica, the city of women, the city of pain. 12,000 dead (officially only 8,372 but in actual fact another 4,000 are missing), and every year on July 11th there is the celebration of the great mass for the burial of those hundreds of bodies that are still being found in newly discovered pits. Hatidza Mehmedovic, the protagonist of the film, was born in Srebrenica and it was clear straight away that she alone, with her composed and dignified air of mourning (in the 1995 genocide she lost both her children, her husband, brothers and sisters and father), would be able to transmit the emotional charge that makes itself so clearly felt in the emotionality of the author-director.

Pietro Balla, Monica Repetto

ThyssenKrupp Blues

Carlo, thirty-years old from Calabria, lives in Turin where he works for the steel plant ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni. In April 2007 ThyssenKrupp decides to demolish the Turin plant and the workers’ protests are to invain. However, 4th July is a holiday in Turin and Carlo tells his friend Melita that he is going to have to go back to Calabria if he is to survive. In addition to the feeling of having been used by his employers, he must also renounce his love. In Autumn, the company unexpectedly recalls its workers. If they don’t want to lose their rights to their severance pay, the workers have to do terrible, back-breaking shifts in precarious conditions. Chronicle of a death foretold: all hell breaks out in the Turin ThyssenKrup on the night between December 5th and 6th 2007. A fire breaks out in production line 5 and seven workers are burnt alive. Carlo worked the afternoon shift that day and he receives a telephone call at dawn telling him about the disaster. The factory closes once and for all and Carlo, again penniless, returns to Calabria. His journey back to his place of birth is transformed into a search for identity and his true place in the world. With its encounters and nature, Calabria becomes the mythical place where a man, destroyed by anger, pain and the infernal media circus, tries to find himself.

Mimmo Calopresti

La fabbrica dei tedeschi

The dramatic story of the ThyssenKrupp, an iron and steel works in Turin, where seven workers died the night between 5th and 6th December 2007. In the first part of the film the actors interpret the victims’ relatives and explain what happened the day of the tragedy. In the second part, the facts are illustrated through interviews with the relatives and with those who witnessed the tragic events.