The smuggler and the man’s life blend together in the challenge for survival, in difficult times, not too long ago. An elderly man tells the story of the "spalloni", the active mountain smugglers on the Italian-Swiss border, from the post second world-war period to the ‘70s. In the mountains on the Swiss border, leading a group of “spalloni”, Ennio and another smuggler go ahead of the group to reconnoitre. But they fall into an ambush: tax police officers emerge from their sleeping bags and fire flares into the air. The smugglers run away into a bushy gorge while the officers chase them with their dogs. Ennio also tells his grand-daughter about the first time he carried a sack along the smuggling routes up to Ca' Rossa the fatigue and pain he suffered on the way back, the shipping of cartons of cigarette on a fishing boat, the journey on Lake Como in the fog and the dawn landing in Lezzeno on the opposite shore. During a freezing winter, Ennio even saw his brother risk freezing to death...
Director
Alberto Anzani
Alberto Anzani, writer and screenwriter, was born in Como in 1973. He graduated in International Law and in the past ten years has lived in Europe and South America where he collaborated with UN and some NGOs. In 1994 he published a book of poems in Guatemala titled Nahual and one year later, in Italy, Saudade - appunti di viaggio. In 2002, after working for UN in Mozambique for one year, he worked at the Italian Embassy in Maputo and published his novel Joia. In 2004 he wrote Sul confine, a historical novel about the memories of a smuggler from Lario in the post war period. In 2005 the book was adapted for the theatre, translated and published in English with the title On the border. In 2006, he participated in several international contests with the film noir L’ambasciata chiude. Sul confine became the subject for a film and in 2007 Anzani made his debut in direction with this his first full-length film.