Fantasmi a Ferrania (Ghosts in Ferrania)
Ferrania is a place, a factory, a globally recognized brand that, for decades, made the history of photography and cinema in Italy. But Ferrania today is a desolate territory, where many former worker…
Fantasmi a Ferrania (Ghosts in Ferrania)
Ferrania is a place, a factory, a globally recognized brand that, for decades, made the history of photography and cinema in Italy. But Ferrania today is a desolate territory, where many former workers of the factory live, looking for a new direction. The story of Ferrania, the film factory planted in a small village in the Ligurian hinterland, has turned 100 years old. It is at the same time the story of a huge factory, of a company, of a brand, of a territory: an entire valley involved in the chemistry of the photosensitive, generations of men and women who, in the dark, created photographic rolls, cinematographic films, X-rays, printing plates. A technologically advanced factory, enclosed within Art Nouveau buildings, surrounded by workers' villages, crossed by the Bormida River and lapped by the railroad, nestled among the Adelasia forests. From the installation in the hamlet of Ferrania of an explosives factory in 1915, passing through fascism, the long phase marked by the leadership of Engineer Luigi Schiatti, the acquisition by the Americans of 3M, labor struggles, speculation and mistakes, we arrive at the abandoned, almost lunar scenario where the protagonists of the film move and where, despite everything, there are entrepreneurial activities that are trying to be reborn.
Fantasmi a Ferrania (Ghosts in Ferrania)
Documentary
Film Details
Ferrania is a place, a factory, a globally recognized brand that, for decades, made the history of photography and cinema in Italy. But Ferrania today is a desolate territory, where many former workers of the factory live, looking for a new direction. The story of Ferrania, the film factory planted in a small village in the Ligurian hinterland, has turned 100 years old.
It is at the same time the story of a huge factory, of a company, of a brand, of a territory: an entire valley involved in the chemistry of the photosensitive, generations of men and women who, in the dark, created photographic rolls, cinematographic films, X-rays, printing plates. A technologically advanced factory, enclosed within Art Nouveau buildings, surrounded by workers' villages, crossed by the Bormida River and lapped by the railroad, nestled among the Adelasia forests. From the installation in the hamlet of Ferrania of an explosives factory in 1915, passing through fascism, the long phase marked by the leadership of Engineer Luigi Schiatti, the acquisition by the Americans of 3M, labor struggles, speculation and mistakes, we arrive at the abandoned, almost lunar scenario where the protagonists of the film move and where, despite everything, there are entrepreneurial activities that are trying to be reborn..