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16 September1942
Roller skating in Ferrara
Author
Ermenegildo Boccafogli
Format
16mm
Duration
2'25''
Credits
Music by Pierpaolo Ovarini

Ferrara's Piazza Ariostea with its oval shape that makes it a Renaissance jewel is traditionally an urban stage for city events. It is so thanks to its ring that becomes a beautiful roller-skating rink, as we see in this challenge between an Italian and a Swiss representative team during the war, on 16 September 1942. The match is a sort of rematch of the competition held on Swiss soil at the beginning of August, but it is above all an opportunity for young local skaters to perform with a gracefulness that befits the place, a space out of time and 'neutral' not only because of the presence of the Swiss, but because it seems so far removed from the ongoing war. At least when skating observed by the eye of Ermenegildo Boccafogli's 16mm camera. And it is the twirling girl in the checked dress that really takes us somewhere else, into the poetic world of amateur cinema.

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