The Istituto Luce turned ninety in 2014, its decades-long history intertwined with that of Italy itself, through cinema and that unique treasure trove of images known to all as the Luce Archives. To celebrate its anniversary, some of the most acclaimed rising filmmakers in Italy were invited to make a small film, with each director selecting ten minutes of footage from the archives, out of the thousands of hours of footage to be found there.
The result is an album full of different narratives. The film footage speaks of the outbreak of war, implorations of peace; building collapses and reconstruction; recollections of (possibly) lost landscapes, and lost realities; miracles, superstitions and dreams.
It's a weave of themes: women's rights, sexuality, the meaning of a song, the Moon, in the form of fairy tales or diaries, pseudo-history or poetry; the words of great writers alongside the voices of the man on the street; starring real people, historical figures, and characters made up out of thin air. A diverse picture, a combinatorial game of intersecting moves, contrasts and analogies, with one common thread: those images from the Archives. Or possibly something else as well: there's much talk of, and many glimpses of, something you could call Italy. Not the Italy in history books, but Italy as it is (or isn't) today, seen through sequences often filmed when our nine directors weren't even born. Present-day Italy through images from its past.