There is also a little bit of Kenya, among the many places in the world that appear, through the stories of Italian protagonists, in the collective docufilm "Sospesi," which will premiere in theaters in Italy tomorrow.
Sospesi, directed by young Romanian filmmaker Martina Dall'Ara, was shot during the pandemic year in which thousands of Italians abroad were stranded in the country where they were residing at the time of the lockdown. The film recounts one hundred life experiences of Italians in foreign places revealing perceptions and moods of completely unexpected isolation, between uncertainty and confidence in the future. Windows to the world, reconstructing the most important and overwhelming phenomenon of 2020, precisely voices and stories "suspended" as per the title of the important video testimony, the result of impressive research and the sociological gaze of the director.

Among the many compatriots who play themselves (and video themselves recounting the uniqueness of their isolation, from Japan to Australia, from Scandinavia to Sub-Saharan Africa and many other countries, fifty in all) is also our director Freddie del Curatolo from Malindi, as well as Nairobian Laura Mariani. "Suspended" started from an exchange of messages by the director with some friends living abroad when the world came to a standstill in March 2020.

"When the health emergency was triggered, we had to reorganize for a moment," Martina says. "Fortunately, I was working from home and had a quiet situation," the director says. "In those days I had started to hear from some Italian friends who, for study or work reasons, were living abroad at that time. Then the documentary soul awakened a little in me and I wanted to fix in my own way some reflections that arose during that period. Essentially I first heard from friends who were abroad, then I asked them to provide me with more contacts and started writing in all the groups of Italians abroad on Facebook. I also bought myself a map and started marking the countries from which I was receiving various video stories. In all, I received a hundred videos from 50 countries around the world in 3 months. 40 hours of footage practically." From this huge and interesting contribution, an hour-and-a-half-long film resulted, which also attracted the interest of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which sponsored the initiative and offered to disseminate it.

"Sospesi" will be screened on Monday, Nov. 28, as a national premiere at Cesena's Eliseo cinema, after which there will be other screenings on major Italian screens.