Bambini di Frontiera | Trento Film Festival

NEAR HORIZONS

Bambini di Frontiera

Manu Gerosa

Italy / 2024 / 54' / Italian premiere

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, a large number of families from southern Italy emigrated to Germany looking for work, often forced to leave their children to be educated in Italy. Whole generations of children thus grew up in what were called frontier orphanages. With the testimony of those involved, the film reconstructs the history of the Alcide De Gasperi Institute on Monte Bondone, operational from 1957 to 1996, and the emigrants’ children who attended it.

Language: Italian

Director

Manu Gerosa

Emanuele Gerosa was born in Rovereto, Italy in 1975. In 2001 he graduated in Contemporary History at the University of Bologna. His films have been selected for numerous festivals around the world and have obtained important international awards. He has been a member of the European Film Academy since 2021.

Awards

PREMIO CINEMAMORE

Ed. 2024

The silent protagonist of the documentary film is the Istituto De Gasperi on Monte Bondone, a special college for “temporary orphans"", which from 1957 to 1996 housed the children of Italian workers who had emigrated to Germany. With the sensitivity typical of the director, interviews and archive footage create a frontier story made up of many different layers of experiences. The voices of the children at the time, today adult men and women, bring back to life a place that is by now abandoned and that for a while they called home.

Gallery

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