due mezze città

Ventimiglia, Italy 2025
HD-video, colour, sound, 24:20min

produced as my Master's thesis project at University of Cologne

Ventimiglia, a small town on the Italian Riviera, seems torn apart, ripped into two half cities by intersecting borders. Within the painterly landscape of the popular touristic destination right on the border with France everything seems to be working against itself. A bridge is torn down while the mayor is proudly watching, teenagers take driving lessons while just a few meters away migrants are living in tents under a bridge, perfectly white yachts loom hugely over picturesque fishing boats. The closer the documentary essay film gets to the internal European border, which exists for no one except those with the wrong skin colour, the more the landscape itself seems to tell us what it means to live in the Borderland.