Pietro Ingrao, 97, tells his story through a long-distance exchange he has with a student from the 1980s, who is distracted from studying by the radio, which is transmitting Ingrao´s own speech during the sixteenth Italian Communist Party´s conference in March 1983. A long interview which takes place between January and June 2012, the film is not so much a story of Pietro Ingrao´s life, as much as it is his own tale on politics as a passion and "as an instrument to change a world I didn´t like."

"Ingrao tells the story of his twentieth and twenty-first century adventures through images of one great story and many smaller ones, through his contemporary voice as well as his voice from speeches in 1968, 1983, 2002… All the while maintaining an intact, upright sentiment. He talks of moments which may appear minor, but are central: like his great passion for cinema and poetry. "I am more of a cinema person, than a political person," he says in the documentary. "I wanted to be a film director, but instead I was kicked into politics." Or like that image of the moon in Lenola, his hometown, which Ingrao as a child tried to grab in vain. A need which never left his side." (Filippo Vendemmiati)

 

Filippo Vendemmiati (Ferrara, Italy, 1958) has been working for the Emilia Romagna Rai newsroom since 1987. He has reported on national news stories, like the military plane disaster on 6 December 1990, which fell on the "G. Salvemini" institute in Casalecchio di Reno, killing twelve people. Or like the murder of Marco Biagi, head of the New Red Brigades, on 19 March 2002. With Marino Cancellari and Donata Zanotti, he made La Grande Sorella, a special report into leprosy in India, which won the Enzo Baldoni award in 2006. His È stato morto un ragazzo, presented in 2010 at Venice Days, won the David award for best documentary.