Director Roberto Davide
San Sabba Concentration Camp. Trieste, Italy
In a remote town in northern Italy, where idyllic landscapes surround vineyards and country-side fields, we stumble upon the ruins of a World War II Concentration Camp secluded in the backroads. With stories of Italian heroics in the Second World War, we begin to scratch the surface of this Camp, and venture forth in a journey to visit the remains of other Italian Concentration Camps - each one harbouring story upon story of crimes against humanity and the Jewish people.
This is the shocking story of the negated and revised history of the Shoah in Italy that will expose the existence of 11 Italian Concentration Camps, the implementation of antiSemitic and codified Racial Laws, and the political and social process of disenfranchisement of Italy’s Jews that mirror the rise and rhetoric of anti-Semitism seen today. Depicted with extraordinary archival footage, and interviews with survivors, witnesses, historians and officials, the collective memory of a community will finally be revealed in accurate detail.
Website: http://www.sixpointsproductions.com/theneighborwithin
Concentration Camps and massacre sites from pre-shoot
Roberto Davide, March 2017.
Discovery and storyline of film.
Site of the last massacre of Jews in Europe carried out by Italian soldiers in Italy on the day Italy surrendered.
images from RAI reportage
In Fossoli Camp, deportees and inmates imprisoned by the Fascists were separated into groups: Jews; Political Prisoners; Prisoners of war (Allied soldiers).
These were the barracks for the Jewish victims of Fascism.
The bottom picture shows the ruins of the barracks as seen from the road along the Camp. Photos taken from pre-production research led to the international recognition of Fossoli on the World Monuments Fund Worlds Monument Watch 2016-2017.
. Italian countryside around Camps from pre-shoot
Roberto Davide director/researcher
Roberto is an Italian and American filmmaker, actor, and international affairs specialist with a passion for political/historical filmmaking. He merges his background in film, international relations, and his experience in film and television to create projects embedded in history and geo-political intrigue, along with visual and factual impact. Roberto has a BA in Russian and Italian literature having studied in Rome, Moscow and New York, and a Masters in International Affairs and Economic from Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, Italy. He then studied acting and film in Rome. Roberto entered into filmmaking in collaboration with the British Film Institute (BFI) starting in 2008 with his documentary WALKING WITH PASOLINI, which earned him recognition as a serious filmmaker in the UK. His research on the Shoah in Italy has awarded him the following titles for his academic and research accomplishments: ASSOCIATE FELLOW, Johns Hopkins University, SAIS; RESEARCH FELLOW, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.
His mission is to create this documentary to bring the research and visuals on the Italian Camps to public attention.
A New York City native, Roberto is a bilingual, dual US-Italy citizen, and hold Israeli residency ID. He currently resides between London and Rome.
Websites:
ROBERTO DAVIDE (click for website)
We plan to submit to international Jewish film festivals, documentary festivals, and film festivals. Beyond festivals, we will submit the film to television and online broadcasters for a wider audience. We will also have screening events in non-theatre environments that incorporate Jewish community outreach, museums and Jewish organisational events, Holocaust remembrance events, as well as academic seminars and discussions in the EU, US, Israel and where Jewish communities are located.
The following list is partial as we are still in pre-production. It will be updated over time.
British Film Institute (BFI)
London International Documentary Festival
CapaTV/Canal+ (Fr)
Halfa Film Festival
Arté (D; Fr)
Wilmington Jewish Film Festival
Vienna Jewish Film Festival
San Fransisco Jewish Film Festival
MUSEUMS that have already requested a short and/or exhibition on the Shoah in Italy: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC; Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY; Bremen Museum, Atlanta; Holocaust Center for Humanity, Seattle).
ACADEMIC SEMINARS requested to date:
Johns Hopkins University SAIS Bologna; University of London
Jewish studies at University of Texas at Austin, Duke University and Boston University EU Universities via NIOD - the Dutch Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences; and EHRI (the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure).
Documentary Film Budget
£245k/€260k/$265k
(budgets available upon request)
Museum Exhibition
£65k/€80k/$85k
Academic Research/Seminar
£60k/€70k/$75k
Arriving in Fossoli
The Neighbor Within: The Hidden History of Concentration Camps in Italy IN PRODUCTION
World Monuments Fund Watch
2016-2017 Recipient
The World Monuments Fund has just announced the Concentration Camps in Italy project for the WMF 2016-2017 Monument Watch. The international fund will comprise a comprehensive public and governmental outreach agenda to bring the Camps to a public awareness, as well as implement a platform that sees the Camps receive Italian State and EU-level recognition and official status as historical sites for protection. This nomination takes the film project to another level further significant international exposure and impact.
Link
“Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini would send people on holiday in internal exile.”
–Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, September 12, 2003
“Berlusconi’s comments cause me profound pain.”
–Amos Luzzatto, Chairman of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities
Filmmaker Roberto Davide:
I came upon Fossoli Concentration Camp years ago, one of many Italian Concentration Camps that have been removed from our collective consciousness, and from the general knowledge of history Fossoli is the Camp described by Primo Levi in the first few pages of his renowned book If This Is A Man The Camp is located on a small country road, out of sight from main streets and traffic – a perfect metaphor to its hidden history and Italy’s role in the Shoah. Its haunting, crumbling remaining structures left an unsettling and disturbing impression on me, prompting me to develop this film project and share it with the world.
Since the end of World War II, Italy has experienced a massive revision of history in terms of its alliance with Nazi Germany, and its crimes against nations and peoples, and its Jewish population. Under the auspices of the Nazi-Fascist alliance, Italy willingly codified the Racial Laws of 1938 that stripped Jews of civil rights, and thus their livelihood. And it didn’t end there. The eleven Concentration Camps built and run in Italy and her territories were either a first stop for Jews in the journey to Camps abroad (namely Auschwitz), or the last place they saw alive. The Italian Camps were where survivors say they understood that there was nothing more they could do, that
“...an extremely important film…that must be long and deep..”
