What happens when families leave behind their Italian roots to arrive in a new country? And how do children live in a bicultural environment? The Italian American Academy of San Diego produced a documentary with the intent of exploring this passage through the eyes of children.
Directed by Marco Lora and sponsored by the San Diego Italian Film Festival, the documentary is a tapestry of cross-cultural young voices, interviews and animation that explore the life of Italian immigrant families.
Director Marco Lora set out to document the educational process occurred at the Italian school in La Jolla, as teachers introduced the concept of migration and worked with children to further elaborate and expand on it. “Most of our students come from Italian families who migrated to San Diego fairly recently” says Maria Maestrini Williamson, one of the founders of the Academy.
“This offered the perfect setting to explore what it means to live in an immigrant family. Kids participated with candor and enthusiasm inside and outside the classroom.”
“When the children were asked what to be Italian means, we learned that some of them live their Italian identity with complete awareness, while others seem not to think about it at all” – say teachers and founders Nicoletta Mazis and Rossella Broglia.
“It was a truly fascinating process to see how the children became more aware as the director and screenwriter spent more time with us in the classroom”.
Lora wanted to follow the children with an unscripted approach; this meant a lot of flexibility, a lot of unknown factors as well as a lot of extra work, but in the end it was worth it. It was by working with the kids within the context of their families that some things were finally put into prospective, feelings were eviscerated, and, as more questions were asked, children could process the concept of migration in a simple, yet powerful way.
The documentary ends with a whimsical animation, titled The Adventures of Mucca in the New World, and based on a story written by the children about a cow moving from Florence to San Diego. In the story of the super fashionable, stiletto hooves wearing cow it is possible to recognize some of their family’s experiences, their thoughts, and their feelings about the journey to a new world.
The documentary premieres on November 11th at the Museum of Photographic Art, on the occasion of the San Diego Italian Film Festival.
More information about the Italian American Academy and about director Marco Lora at www.iaasd.org and www. quixart.com
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