D I R E C T O R ' S N O T E S
More and more frequently African boys, little more than children, choose to undertake the arduous journey that leads them into Europe along routes considered illegal. They unscrupulously launch themselves into an adventure with an uncertain outcome, experiencing hunger, exploitation, sometimes imprisonment. Once in Italy they are separated from adults and collected in CPAs, centres where they should remain for 30 days before being routed to the most appropriate structures. As a matter of fact, the lack of means and the slowness of Italian bureaucracy transform this temporary stay in an agony of hallucinated inactivity. CPA guests always sleep, eat pre-packaged meals and use their time to peer into their cell phones.
Many of them escape, others fall into a state of clinical depression.
After having passed years to gather testimonies, we have realized how the time spent in the CPAs dug a vacuum deep inside these children.
How can the mind of a teenager, who survived the war and poverty, react when he find himself stuck for months in a remote corner of a foreign island?
What's left of his thrust toward the future? Of his reckless courage? Of his own identity?
These questions guided us in staging a gaunt story focused on the description of a place: its hypnotic atmosphere, its expanded space-time continuum, the sensation of a vanishing reality.
There six young protagonists, defeated by boredom, animated by small rituals and clumsy desires, live a disquieted life.
Six suspended lives captured in still and dilated shots, in the distance, crushed against an almost unreal background.
An isolated planet where the mobile phone is the only way to stay in touch with yourself, your dreams, your loved ones, your friends: the animated image of the world outside, ephemeral like a mirage.
P R O D U C T I O N ' S N O T E S
In the last seven years the phenomenon of unaccompanied minor migrants has exploded along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the numbers are constantly growing. “Città Giardino” is a film that deals with the problematic theme of their welcoming in Italy an unprecedented way and with a personal and surprising look, bringing to light the distortions that transform their temporary stay in the Help Centres into an motionless odyssey with hallucinated outlines.
Marco Piccarreda and Gaia Formenti, have been working on this theme since 2014, when they started to frequent the “Pope Francesco” Help Centre in Priolo Gargallo (Syracuse), its guests, its educators and the associations which were working there.
They spent months to collect testimonies, to explore places, meeting young migrants and listening to their stories.
This long preparatory work has allowed the authors to know the tormented stories and the desires of the young guests of these structures and to reflect on them, refine their "look" and find an expressive form as honest as surprising in dealing with such delicate issues, often worn out by the daily work of the media. The story of the film is entirely inscribed in the imaginary “Città Giardino” Help Centre, recreated in Priolo Gargallo (Syracuse) on the ruins of an old and now abandoned real hosting building.
The authors brought back some of the boys who had lived there the months immediately after their landing in Italy.
Together they started a workshop to recreate the life of the Centre and reflect on that experience that lasted several months (the short film DECLARATION OF PEACE 2020 testifies to this process) which has resulted in the production of the film.
The shots were concentrated in a short time with an agile and light work system: reduced crew, ductile work plan, constant opening to the unexpected. All this to ensure the greatest possible proximity to the boys / actors and their continuous deviations from the planned paths.
G L O S S A R Y
CPA - Help Centre for Immigrants
It hosts arrested, detained or accompanied foreign children until their validation hearing, and there activities to support and clarify their rights are carried out. The CPAs, which are places organized to deal with the needs of emergency, host dozens and dozens, sometimes hundreds kids, in buildings which are often inadequate.
Most of the time they are prefabricated buildings located in remote areas, away from city centers, and life is monotonous and unvarying there.
The CPAs are mostly run by cooperatives that entrust the organization of the Centre and the protection of children to educators, cultural mediators and volunteers. The Italian legislation provides for the activation of some fundamental rights, such as the right to go to school; it provides for a residence permit which can be prolonged until the end of the school cycle and the assignment of job grants to start up a professional activity. Unfortunately the implementation of these services is often made impracticable by the location of the CPA or by other organizational difficulties.
In the most fortunate cases, non-profit Associations, NGOs and volunteers are responsible for giving children basic medical and psychological assistance and some study, social and leisure activities
S Y N O P S I S
Sicilian hinterland, summer.
The Città Giardino Help Centre for Immigrants is a dilapidated building squeezed between the mountains and the factories.
Città Giardino is closing and the only guests are six kids between 14 and 18 years old.
They come from Africa, they went across the desert and the sea and now they are waiting for a permit, a visa, a transfer directive.
The days pass the same, through sleep, meals and endless immersion in their smartphones. Heat, frustration and boredom paralyse the boys, under the look of an elderly watchman in charge of their supervision.
Even the visit of a journalist does not break the monotony: he has come to interview the young guests but the words barely come out.
None of them wants to tell about himself.
Omar trains in his improvised gym, Jallow looks for refuge in his tablet, Jelimakan prays. Only Sahid, a newcomer, seems determined to win the immobility: he is planning an escape.
He asks for help to his compatriot Farouq and succeeds in persuading him after some hesitancy .
In the following days, Sahid and Farouq develop their plan. Their preparations are interrupted by the arrival of a family visiting the Center.
Farouq, overcome by homesickness, approaches them hoping they would bring him to their home.
Sahid, envious, threatens to take revenge, but a sudden summer storm suspends any hostilities.
When the sun returns, bringing again the heat and the boredom, Sahid and Farouq finally decide to leave.
That will be the last night at the Centre.