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

A barrier should have been built at the Brenner Pass, on the border with Austria. In the spring of 2016, the Austrian government declared that it wanted to erect a fence on the border, in the Alps, in order to monitor the migration flow from Italy, at the closure of the Balkan routes. After two years, the dreaded invasion has not yet occurred and the fence lies stored in the containers, unused, while the migrant registration center that was built has never entered into operation. In a country that traces borders and tensions, politics and the media are far from understanding the global phenomena that Europe is undergoing. The director Nikolaus Geyrhalter brings his camera to the valleys and the towns, framing the landscapes and the faces of the inhabitants, listening to their voices without ever judging their fears and hopes, in the shadow of a spectre that is late in manifesting itself. A border region thus becomes the mirror of an increasingly politically divided Europe. In the shadow of the Alps, the long shots of Geyrhalter's camera reveal an increasingly urgent debate on the state of Europe.

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  Nikolaus Geyrhalter

  Born in Vienna in 1972, at the age of only twenty-two he founded his production company, Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion. His debut behind the camera was in 1992, with Eisenerz. His works have won numerous international awards.  Das Jahr nach Dayton (1997), was awarded at the Vienna International Film Festival and at the Berlin International Film Festival. Pripyat (1999) won best documentary at the European Film Awards. He participated in the FFDL in 2019 with Erde and Die Bauliche Massnahme (2018, Prize from the Cassa Rurale Vallagarina).