30. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
23 August - 1 September 2024

Italian premiere

The Roia Valley is a borderland: since 2015 the frontier has been closed, controlled by the police. Sixty kilometres, divided by the river between Italy and France, are a door between the rocks to a better life or simply a way to survive. The bandits, who patrol the slopes, are men and women who defy the law by guiding the migrants along the villages that rise on the slopes. Knowledge of the territory is salvation, on the plateau, for the many stranded in Ventimiglia who every day try to cross tracks, roads, and bridges. Jean Boiron-Lajous's documentary documents a painful reality, as he follows in the footsteps of the outlaws: the voices, often off-screen, tell of an illegal solidarity that transforms into an act of resistance to European governments, still unable to respond to the human tragedies that continue to pass through their territories. The mountains are a land of exile, the background for the gazes and faces of those who dream of what lies beyond the ridges, a silent witness to the steps of bandits.

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  Jean Boiron-Lajous

  Jean Boiron-Lajous studied film and graduated from the University of Lille 3 and Aix-Marseille. He directed La mémoire et la mer, a documentary produced by the University of Aix-Marseille. He was assistant director for Agnès Varda on the miniseries Agnès de-ci de-là Varda. He collaborates in the organisation of La Première fois, a festival dedicated to documentary films. In 2015 he made the documentary Terra Di Nessuno.