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29 November1937
The little white coat
Author
Famiglia Barzizza
Format
9,5mm
Duration
3'41''
Credits
Music by Francesca Baccolini

On 29 November 1937, Pippo Barzizza portrays his wife Tatina, daughter Isa and youngest son Renzo. It is the dress of memory that, thanks to these images, still warms him: 'We are in Turin, probably near our house, in Via Montemagno. I am two years old, wearing a beautiful white coat. There is also Isa at eight, already - from the way she poses - ready for her real profession. She looks remarkably like her as an adult. And then I recognise my mother. I don't recognise anyone else. It was probably a gathering of local friends for us children to play. It ends with a roundabout in which at some point the world falls apart..." We are in the small gardens of the square dedicated to Guido Gozzano, the poet who lived there until his death in 1916 at the age of thirty-two. Gozzano, who must certainly have witnessed many games under his house, left posterity verses on a roundabout that seems to be the eternal return of a hopeless nursery rhyme ("Ne fare giro a tondo estraggono le sorti... A quanti bimbi morti passò di bocca in bocca la bella filastrocca signora delle sorti?"). And so we ask ourselves: will Barzizza's roundabouts return one day? Will the white caps return? It may be an illusion that the roundabout of the 9.5 mm never ends, but something has remained between the frames and the central perforation, dear Gozzano...

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