Filmmaker Brunella Filì’s doc “passes through” the Emergency Exit to LA

According to the official statistics, offered by the Registry of Italians Resident Abroad (A.I.R.E.), over 27.000 Italians leave their home country behind, every year (actually, the numbers double, if we consider the unofficial data of those unregistered).

Mind that we are not talking about young people, who indulge their whim of going to live abroad. Upon graduation, they cannot see even the faintest hope of finding a job, fitting their skillset (Italy’s unemployment rate amounts to over 46 % of young population). Therefore, they pack their bags and embark on a one-way trip, mostly to Europe and the American continent.

Young documentary filmmaker, Brunella Filì, took Italy’s pulse, like a doctor does with a sick patient.

On April 27 at the Italian Cultural Institute of L.A., she presented her first feature documentary, Emergency Exit: Young Italians Abroad, offering us the full “clinical diagnosis” of a country, which is bleeding its lifeblood out, at an impressive rate.

For whoever wishes to penetrate the new generations’ mind and to connect emotionally with them, the film is available for streaming on Netflix (Italy), iTunes and Google Play (US), or you may request a screening, or a DVD at: www.emergencyexit.it.

To follow the latest updates, the blog is on Facebook  at: www.emergencyexit.it/blog. 

I was born in Bari (capital city of the Apulia region of Italy), in 1982. I graduated from a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Studies from the University of Lecce. Afterwards, I specialized with a Master’s Degree in Film/TV Studies and Multimedia Production, at the University of Bologna.

In Bologna, I had my early experiences on set as AD, both in traditional 35mm and digital productions. That first “taste” drew me closer to filmmaking, in particular documentary.

Actually, I had my debut earlier as PA in Bologna, with L’Ispettore Coliandro, a series of TV movies, directed by Marco and Antonio Manetti (collectively, Manetti Bros.) and produced by RAI – Italy’s national public broadcasting company.

My following experience as AD for the short film, Pòppitu, shot in Apulia, was different. It represented a production on smaller scale.

Thanks to those two experiences, I fully realized my career path and I resolved to start working on my own projects.

Cinema (both fictional and factual) is a powerful tool not simply to tell stories, but also to raise awareness on important themes and issues – by compelling emotionally the audience – and maybe even to stir some changes.

It all started by a fortuitous chance. A few months after graduation, I went to the University Registrar in Bologna, to pick up my Master’s degree diploma.

The administrator told me that I was among the very few, who came to collect the document in person. Most of the diplomas were mailed abroad.

At that moment, I had a brainwave. Most of my friends and colleagues, whom I had not seen for a long time, expatriated.

I resolved to deepen this new phenomenon, through my skills of filmmaking and video-making. I wanted to meet in person this young generation of Italians, who had scattered across the globe.

Therefore, I embarked in a “docu-trip”, to hear their voices in six representative locations – Vienna, Paris, London, Tenerife, Bergen (all in Europe) and New York City (US). Twelve stories but a single “plot”: one of a forgotten generation.

As far as the writing process, documentaries don’t need an actual screenplay. I had the idea of exploring 5-6 countries, to see how the phenomenon varied in the different locations.

With regard to the research, I looked into the impressive statistics of Italians, overflowing out of our country. I also interviewed several experts in demography and sociology, in order to dig deeper into Italy’s contemporary and historical migration.

The main difference between the two is that, these days, highly educated young people, and even the most promising researchers, are the ones to emigrate.

In the past, the poorest and most uneducated mass would leave Italy, with no means at all, while, today, more than 90% of the expatriates, despite being graduated and professionally skilled, can’t find a job, nor a stable and fairly paid position, in their home country.

The media didn’t pay enough attention to them, so I decided to give voice to the protagonists of this phenomenon.

My main goal was to investigate whether to expatriate is the only possible “emergency exit”, to realize one’s own dreams and to build solid plans for the future.

Upon having developed the initial concept and a treatment, I shot a trailer. In 2012, my project was selected for a prestigious documentary pitching workshop, ITALIAN DOC SCREENINGS (in Florence), instructed by several masters of this craft, who encouraged us to expand our ideas.

As my project was being featured on the BBC, The Guardian, and other major outlets, more and more young people wrote, asking me to tell their stories.

I wanted to “cover” every single theme and nuance, pertaining to this contemporary diaspora. Sadness, satisfaction, love, nostalgia, and how one lives far away from home. Every story constitutes a separate “chapter.”

As my work was progressing, I “strung everything together”, through the narration by British journalist Bill Emmott, former Director of The Economist and current columnist for Italian newspaper, La Stampa.

I felt the urgency to realize it, without waiting to find a production company, interested in my project.

In Italy, it’s extremely rare to find investors for documentaries, which are not distributed theatrically. Not to mention, in the case of a young and emerging woman filmmaker, like myself.

Finally, by leveraging my project’s wide media coverage, I crowdfunded it successfully on Indiegogo, with the crucial contribution by Beth A. Di Santo, Italian-American attorney and producer.

During my research, I found a myriad of period footage, featuring Italian emigrants abroad. Those clips, featuring migrants after WWII, were drawn from reportages by Comencini and Gregoretti.

Those stories from the past reverberate in the present, in the sense that we find the same expressions of homesickness and attachment to our home country in the young people of these days.

I wanted to create a strong emotional parallel between our past and our current days.

Upon my documentary’s worldwide success in the film festival circuit and, urged by a lot of new material, sent to me by other Italians abroad, I entered my web series’ project to a competition, called Principi Attivi, by Apulia, region of Italy.

By winning the latter, I received the money prize of 25,000 €, which enabled me to kick-start a local production company, called OffiCinema DOC, and to realize four episodes of the web series, freely available for streaming on our website: http://www.emergencyexit.it/

I’ve been touring my documentary across the States: in particular, in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Detroit and New York City.

However, the screening in L.A. was like a dream come true. It was a real honor to be introduced by Victor Laruccia – Executive Director of the San Diego Italian Film Festival – who truly got the message of my movie.

Moreover, I was extremely pleased by the attendance of Prof. Thomas Harrison, Chair of the Department of Italian at the UCLA, who invited me to present my work to his students.

The theater was jam-packed and I’m happy with the audience’s enthusiastic response to my documentary. I thank again the IIC in L.A. for having screened it and for having had me as a guest.