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Original name: Bella Ciao - Per la libertà
English name: Bella Ciao
Year: 2022
Run time: 92 Min
Language:Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English
Type (Colour/ Black & white): Colour
Country: Italy
Director: Giulia Giapponesi
Producer: Carlo Degli Esposti, Nicola Serra
Cast: Ilkay Akkaya, Stefano Bellotti, Cesare Bermani, Eduardo Carrasco, Floriana Diena Putaturo, Marcello Flores D'Arcais, Fausto Giovannardi
Screenplay: Giulia Giapponesi, Armando Maria Trotta
Cinematographer: Gianluca Ceresoli
Editor: Francesca Sofia Allegra
Sound Designer: Luca Leprotti, Eugenio Mininni
Music Composer: Marco Biscarini
Production Company: Palomar
World Sales: Cinephil
Giulia Giapponesi is a screenwriter, director and editor. After graduating in Communication Studies, she worked for over ten years as a video editor, working on television projects, commercials and video clips. In 2012, she founded and chaired the association Kinodromo which promotes independent Italian productions. Additionally, she manages the programming of a small arthouse cinema in Bologna. In 2019 she wrote and directed the short film The Load, which was selected to more than 50 international festivals. In 2018, she wrote and directed the documentary Carracci - The Silent Revolution, which won awards for Best Director and Best Soundtrack at FilmArte Berlin. Bella Ciao (2022) is her first feature film.
For decades, wherever people have fought against injustice, they have sung “Bella ciao.” Some say it was the anthem of Italian partisans fighting against fascism in WWII, but the origins of the song are unclear. Was it a folk song favoured by exploited workers in the rice fields in Italy? The accounts of various speakers are richly illustrated with archive material. Ultimately, the song’s origins are less important than what it means to those who sing it as a call for liberty. A Kurdish woman talks about the magical moment she first heard “Bella ciao” as a child, when it was sung during a demonstration—in the banned Kurdish language. In the film, the song connects the struggles for liberation by different generations in various countries. The main focus is on Italy, Turkey and Iraq, all countries in which democracy is under attack to a greater or lesser degree.
