Posted by Clelia Carbonari

A young Nigeraian on the bus to Reggio Calabria from Sant'Alessio Village

We chose to participate to the workshop as we want to learn from other fellow documentary makers and experts. We are working on our project idea since last June and we have found difficulties as this is our first project together as directors. We aim to learn and contribute as well as make a short documentary that will serve for our long documentary lenght.

The documentary wants to expose the finding of identities, hence the sense of belonging in a land where Calabrians and migrants work in strong relationship with the earth. The surrounding territory provides stability and nourishment.

The migrants, supported by the SPRAR operators, work together with the locals especially for the cultivation of the plants. This constant contact with the land allows them to immediately establish an intimate relationship with their new home. But is this enough to feel that someone can possibly belong to that? The sense of hospitality of the Calabresi and their desire for integration, are enough elements for migrants to feel part of Sant'Alessio?

We want to unveil the new social context created in Sant'Alessio between local citizens and migrants, showing the difficulties, the cultural mistrust, the successes obtained, solidarity and, ultimately, the relationship between human beings and the surrounding area.

We will explore the thematic of men that leave his roots and men who have never left them; we will observe, therefore, the correspondences and the oppositions between one and the other, the bonds that are established and their distances.

We started brainstorming about the idea of making a documentary last June. We read an article about good examples of inclusion in little villages in the south of italy aiming to support the integration of migrants and locals living in the same place. 

We made online research and started to get local contacts, our aim was to go in one of those villages and find out more about the reality.

We first went to visit Sant'Alessio in September 2017, we stayed 10 days and made contacts, explored the life and context of the village, choosing the subjects and starting to think of a story.

Back in Rome, we organised three events to fund our location scouting ; this was a chance for us to test our idea and get feedback from people.

We managed to go a second time to Sant'Alessio this past January: this was the occasion to choose our story, meet our characters, empatise with everyone in the village, thinking of logistics for the real shoot.

We are now part of this workshop as we want to learn how to make a good story and to present a short version  of our main project which will be a long documentary lenght.

Earth and Skin represent the choice of combining the element of nature to the element of human being and the finding of odentities. A cu' Apparteni it's the southern italy way of asking "to whom you belong?" Which is the main idea of our documentary.