The worker Umberto Albanese, who immigrated to Lake Como from Petralia Soprana in the Madonie Mountains in the mid-1950s, worked a thousand Sundays to give his children a decent life: “I remember that it was on the morning of one Christmas day It was 1978 when someone showed up and asked him to come over to do something. I don’t know what was urgent. It was one of the rare moments when I saw my mother Maria getting nervous: “No, Umberto, no, please, not at Christmas!” And now that he, Antonio, with a lump in his throat under a flood Enters the cinema The Diocesan Leo . But of course Umberto would also have been deceived. He himself would have fallen into the trap of the unctuous officials who suggested that customers leave their money there, growing in the institution’s coffers, and instead get a loan that could be easily paid off with the interest on the money deposited : “It was a criminal.” Game. Abusing other people’s trust is a criminal offense.”
He explains that no, even if the room is full of people burned by the fraud and the Bishop Giuliano Brugnototto receives with the Mayor of Vicenza Giacomo Possamai and the President of the Regional Council Roberto Ciambetti as well as the main leaders of the savers’ revolt Luigi To Ugone and Renato Bertelle seeing this dramatic film that is about them, he has nothing against Gianni Zonin, the patron of “Popolare”, who was the Sun King of the city and is now locked in his mansion without having made a single film in the day Prison: “I have a problem with a system in which no one has ever truly paid for the ruin of hundreds of thousands of decent people.” I won’t go into the merits of the investigation. But it’s not right. They have destroyed the trust of entire communities. It’s unforgivable.
Communities like the one where he was born, in Olginate, on the Lecco branch of the Lario, where his mother still lives and where he returned to make the film, which “collects many stories from many Italian cities”. There he attended elementary and middle school, there he fell in love with the forest, with mushrooms and with grayling fishing, from there he returned to the Madonie every summer for years with his father, his mother and his older brothers Anna and Ignazio: “You were train journeys that lasted 25 hours. I remember the attacks on the carriages on the platform, the crowds, the bundles, the stops in the stations with the ice cream sellers holding sticks to the windows, the smells, the endless chatter and then, beautiful, Sicily… » Two weeks and then the return to the small lake home. There he began working at the age of 15 in Angelo Gnecchi’s metal processing factory Tecno Impianti: “In families like mine it was normal to go to work after middle school. Even in the seventies. Reinforced work shoes (if a piece fell on your foot it hurt), trousers and a blue work jacket with large pockets. On the first day they entrusted me to the workshop manager, who had to find out what I was suitable for. I was a little man. Independent. Proud. To make a living until I buy a used Audi 80, but mine. From eight to noon, lunch break and return to the counter. I was a spinner. A nice job. Where you pay attention to the tenth of a millimeter… woe betide you if you get distracted.”
He rolls up his sleeve and shows his wrist: “This scar was left by a lock of red-hot steel. At the counter where I worked for seven years. I attended night school as a mechanics expert because at some point I realized how important it is to read and learn. Before I embarked on this adventure thanks to a friend who took me to an evening theater class, the reality of the factory was crucial for me. I love Ken Loach, an extraordinary director who knew how to describe the world of the working class like no other. However, he never worked in the factory. I do. In fact, I may be the only director in the world who has returned to shoot a film on the same lathe that he actually worked on.
Just the same? “The same. If I wanted to credibly describe this tragedy of people defrauded by the banks, I had to start from the reality that I knew best. My country. The villagers. The lakeside condos. Where my father had overcome all prejudice and earned the respect and friendship of even the most suspicious. One day someone said to me: “If all Sicilians were like your father, Sicily would be the country of Japan.” If all Sicilians were like your father, Sicily would be Japan. So the working class was something different. There was respect. Party representatives came to the factory. You talked to people. Of concrete things. Real problems.” Does that mean without the advice of armochromists? He laughs: “Let’s forget it.” I don’t want to get involved in these controversies. All I’m saying is that workers have made this country great. Even in Parliament. But now?”
For two years, he says, he worked on Cento Domeniche: “I read, studied, listened to a lot of testimonies and spoke at length with Emilia Laugelli, a psychologist who followed people here in Vicenza who were exhausted because they were affected by the Banks had been defrauded.” . People who haven’t slept a wink for nights and nights at a time. Even Antonio Riva, the worker in my film, doesn’t sleep at night. Bad thoughts come when you don’t sleep. When I listened to these stories, I came to the conclusion that the film had to be made. I am 59 years old and have made 44 contributions: I could have been one of those who lost their savings. Carlo Degli Esposti understood, he believed in it, we started. The reception these days in many Italian theaters confirms that it really had to be done.”
Some remembered “Dog Day Afternoon” by Sydney Lumet… “I read, but there Al Pacino wanted the bank’s money as a kind of compensation for the war in Vietnam.” Not here, here our Antonio Riva repeats: Me only wants my money, only mine, the one you cheated on me… It’s a completely different story… What impressed and moved me the most is the feeling of guilt of those cheated. A terrible pain. Poor people. As if it was her fault…”