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10 October1942
Air raid alarm
Author
Ermenegido Boccafogli
Format
16mm
Duration
1'22''
Credits
Music by Michele Manzolini

The wounds of the aerial bombardment of Italian cities during the war have never fully healed. A trauma caused by the destruction from the sky, with the dead and the devastation. To blame those who wanted the war is the least. Life under the bombardments is made up of the fear that they will come, the false alarms, the dress rehearsals for evacuation and the sirens that do not sound when they should. So this 16mm film shot in Ferrara on 10 October 1942 marks the filmed memory of a moment that will not come. It looks like a great play, or even a ballet, on the stage of the city's historic centre: some people hurry their steps, some run away on foot and by bicycle, some pass in front of the camera, having their portraits taken in close-up... A city in movement. There will be no bombing until the first one on 27 December 1943, which will be devastating and which will be followed by another 297 air raids. But even this film is the memory of the bombs that will soon come taking away the inscription on the wall of the moat of the Estense Castle, 'Viva il Duce'. Meanwhile, a sort of human, mechanical and urban ballet.

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