I dreamed there was sea in Milan

"I dreamed there was sea in Milan" is born following the publication of the thirteenth edition of the Bookciak, Azione! Award contest announcement, with the intention of taking part in the Memory Ciak section, made in collaboration with LiberEtà, Spi-CGIL and Premio Zavattini, in which it then triumphed. The short film, freely inspired by "Il ragazzo con la tuta blu" by Peppe Lomonaco (Edizioni LiberEtà), is the result of a months long confrontation between me, Davide d'Addato and Gabriele Ciavarella, who then edited the technical sections of the work. I remember perfectly that one of the very first ideas came to me from a voracious interest in the little notes that, throughout the story, the protagonist, Angelo, writes during his shifts at the factory. I wanted to know, at all costs, what was written on those little notes because I was sure, at the same time, that there, and only there, lay the key to a real understanding of the character and of what would later be revealed for me, but also for my colleagues, the compelling theme of the entire narrative: the struggle that divides Angelo between gratitude towards the factory, which saved him from the misery of the South, and love for his Annina, in which he sees a future in which, finally, may his southern origins cease to ring out as an eternal condemnation. Probably, the real genesis of the short film was precisely this: to ask oneself if and in what way love relieves fear.