Where They Need to Stand
Synopsis
Georgia, twenty-six, was a secretary. One day, she was on her way to buy shoes; in front of the train station in her hometown of Como, she found a makeshift camp with about a hundred migrants: it was the Swiss border that had closed. She decided to stop and lend a hand. Then she decided to spend a week of her vacation lending a more substantial hand. She’s still there.
Lorena, a retired psychotherapist in Pordenone; Elena, who works in Bussoleno and lives in Oulx, in the mountains of the upper Susa Valley; and Jessica, a student in Cosenza, are very different people; they are of different ages, and come from different worlds. But what happened to Georgia happened to all of them: they found themselves faced, concretely, with a situation of marginalization, exclusion, and chaos, and they didn’t turn away. They stayed where they felt they belonged.
Trailer
Director’s vision
This documentary explores a possible response to these bleak times. It doesn’t address immigration from the perspective of those who choose to leave or are forced to do so: it’s first and foremost a film about us, about our ability to engage with the world and share its destiny.
Production Notes
There’s a country portrayed as terrified of migration and violently hostile toward migrants. A segment of the political class continues to build its identity and electoral fortunes on this narrative. Another segment of the political class, however, seems incapable of speaking to a frightened and increasingly aggressive country.
But there’s also another country, one that practices solidarity and fights for rights every day, often in an informal and unstructured manner. It’s not professionalism, and sometimes it’s not even exactly activism. Dove bisogna stare (Where One Should Be) tells the story of four women of different ages, who, in different places, are engaged in activities that at first glance seem absurd to common sense, or what is passed off as such. Women who appear out of place within the dominant narrative, almost incomprehensible. By listening to their stories and reflecting on their daily lives, we discover straightforward speeches and gestures, extraordinary in their simplicity. We discover that they aren’t out of place, but in a very real place, the place where they feel they need to be.
In opposition to the insane rhetoric of invasion and closure, and the refined reasoning of professional right-thinking people, people like Elena, Georgia, Jessica, and Lorena offer hope for a shared effort to overcome the problems and tensions caused by an epochal phenomenon like migration, a phenomenon that forcefully exposes the contradictions and injustices of our society.
Credits
