Synopsis
A nocturnal tale, a trip to the heart of Italy on the night trains that carry the poor and the immigrants who travel the length of the peninsula from south to north and vice versa. The journeys, stations, landscapes, industries, architecture, the faces and the dialects, all come together to offer a snapshot of the country.
A word from Tënk
In the beginning, the director takes the old express night trains that were decommissioned shortly after the film’s release with the arrival of high-speed trains. The result of hard and tireless work, the film travels from Salerno to Trento, from Genoa to Sicily: an endless voyage during which a new Italian landscape is depicted through the window. The journey, from night to morning, features countless encounters on board the old trains, contributing to the composition of a portrait of an invisible Italy with its commuters, seasonal workers, migrants, vagabonds and ageing anarchists. Winner of the Orizzonti Section at Venice, the strength of this film lies in a simple transformation: conceived as an inquiry without any defined intrigue and with a tiny budget, it turns into an unforgettable nocturnal poem revealing a world that’s about to disappear.
Daniela Persico
Programmer and critic
