Milano Via Padova

Antonio Rezza, one of the most irrepressible comedian on the Italian scene, walks down Via Padova, otherwise called “the multi ethnic heart of Milan” and, together with a camera and a multilingual interpreter on his side, discusses racism with the people who experience the street. The recurring question is: “Would you host a refugee in your home? Even a corner in the kitchen would do, he won’t bother you, at worst he can stare at you; he’s self-sufficient”. What might appear to be a nonsensical question, is indeed taken by many as a not so unrealistic possibility. During these unbounded paradoxical dialogues which recall and rethink a previous set of hilarious TV interviews entitled Troppolitani, another question arises: why do we have to think and act in the same way as everyone else? “Racism, by definition, is a man who overestimates himself and who has the time to pinpoint insignificant differences that generally remain unseen because of the rampant homologation of society”. These few lines were written by the duo Rezza-Mastrella to describe their feature-length film, that has finally come to light after four years of production and released by the authors in Riccione. “Foreigners want the same things as Italians want: a job, a house, civil rights, and never have the freedom of choosing autonomously what to do. We are hard-wired to be racist by means of mass persuasion, and foreigners who comply with the system, develop a parallel racism fed by life that flows on”.