When junior media studies major Alexandra Platt studied film production
abroad last summer in Rome, she had no idea the documentary film she’d
make would end up premiering at an international human rights film
festival in Italy in April.
The 15-minute film,
Sono Niente (I
Am Nothing) was made with director and co-producer James Kilton ’08 and
co-producer Charlie Noell, an alum of Loyola University Chicago –
through which the study abroad was organized.
Sono Niente depicts
the struggles of one Gypsy, or Roma, family and their community at the
height of anti-Gypsy protests in Italy last summer, including police
raids and the fire bombing of one of their camps in Bologna.
The
topic was so politically charged that one Italian professor at Loyola
University Chicago’s John Felice Rome Center told Platt and her crew,
“If you were my grandchildren, I would forbid you from doing this
movie.”
“That was basically the statement that showed us why
we were doing this project,” said Platt, who edited the film and was a
co-producer. While the professor was principally worried about the
students’ safety, his comments illustrated the ongoing divide within
Italian society that has led the federal government to prevent the Roma
– many of whom are native born or decades-long residents – from
obtaining full citizenship and work permits, as well as panhandling or
collecting and recycling rubbish. A law approved last year even lays
the groundwork for all 150,000 Roma in Italy to be deported at the whim
of authorities.
Unnerved, at first, by the idea of entering a
community they knew little about and had been told was dangerous,
Platt, Kilton, and Noell worked through a local nonprofit whose mission
is to integrate the Roma – who trace their ancestry to medieval India –
into Italian society.
“Our biggest goal, and my biggest goal
while editing, was for viewers to see this injustice that is basically
unknown in America,” Platt said.
Platt, who had been to Italy
before, said she had seen some Roma on the streets begging, but never
realized until she began filming that it was basically out of necessity
since Italian law prevents them from working.
Tom Kington, a British journalist covering Italy for
The Observer
newspaper, says that the system is unfairly stacked against the Roma
compared to other immigrant groups in Italy. “If you have a system that
allows people to get left behind and slip through the cracks, you are
going to see people who are not integrated, therefore are more likely
to turn to petty crime,” says Kington, who was interviewed for the film
in Rome shortly after last year’s protests. “What that means is that
you get a backlash, which we’re seeing right now in Italy.”
Upon
seeing the film, the director of the John Felice Rome Center suggested
the team enter it into the Human Rights Nights International Film
Festival in Italy. “A few months (later) we got word back that it was
going to be in a showcase with two other films!” Platt said.
Not only was
Sono Niente
well received at Human Rights Nights, but Platt recently learned the
film has been selected to be showcased at the Cannes Film Festival in
the short film corner in May.
