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11 July1982
World champions!
Author
Amos Fontanesi
Format
Super8
Credits
Music by Guglielmo Pagnozzi

Amos Fontanesi, with some friends and colleagues from Landini, the well-known tractor factory in Emilia now owned by a multinational, followed the exploits of the national football team in the 1982 World Cup in Spain. A trip with Super8 camera that - in spite of the predictions of many, indeed of practically everyone - was sensationally extended until the final. The last stop was Madrid, at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, on the evening of 11 July 1982. An unforgettable date for tens of millions of Italians who see the match on television and for Fontanesi, who sees it live and obviously films it. Italians, without being aware of it, project onto that team - that is about to make the miracle - the desire for a future different from the recent past. Thanks to his filmic images, it is as if we were with him living and remembering those emotions outside the stadium and in the stands. This Super8 look is worth a thousand words and who knows how many would have wished to be in Fontanesi's place and those present, envying those lucky ones except for one detail. The Bernabeu fans will forever miss the memory of that phrase shouted three times live on television by commentator Nando Martellini at the final whistle. 'World champions! World champions! World champions!" It will remain etched in the collective memory, as a televised memory worth as much as the three goals scored by Rossi, Tardelli and Altobelli. Fontanesi's images will remain mute to this day, yet so eloquent. To make up for the lack of the voice that certifies the event by awakening the most incredulous (but then it is true, isn't it a dream?), Fontanesi will add the headlines of the Azzurri triumph and the photo of the line-up of this epochal victory. World champions!

P.S. Cabrini's missed penalty is the episode removed from the final, the amateur filmmaker's dream is to film the moment of the goal and the penalty is the most auspicious occasion for those forced to chisel out the actions to be filmed, but perhaps never before has a mistake from the penalty spot by your team seen after time almost made you smile. Toh, and who remembered that? Thanks for this souvenir too, filmmaker Amos.

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