Documentary film, directed by Ambra Tonini, co-produced with Lyon Capitale TV, with the support of the SUD region, PROCIREP, ANGOA, CNC Développement renforcé et production, Officina Koiné, Piemonte Doc Film Fund and Torino Film Commission, master class in Lussas in August 2019.
Streen! Award for distribution at the Torino Undergroung Cinefest 2024 in Turin, Best Documentary Award for Professione Documentario Piemonte movie 2025 in Turin, Paolo Gobetti Award for Filmare la Storia 2025 in Turin, Special Mention ‘Best Ecology Documentary’ at the Bridge of Peace Film Festival 2025, Special Mention for Best Remembrance Documentary at the Caorle Independent Film Festival 2025, Official Selection at the Festival Internacional de Cine Comunitario Historias en Kilómetros 2025, selection for Best Mediterranean Film at the Catania Film Festival, at the AmiCorti International Film Festival 8th Edition and at the Paradise Film Festival.
Six siblings gather on the family farm near Mantua to build a bicycle. Piece by piece, this potentially laborious mechanical process becomes a game for the siblings, who retrace the buried memories of their father’s history and his friendship with the Steffans.
Their father, Angelo, had been sent as a POW to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he was tortured. At the end of his strength and very ill, he was taken in by a German family to work on their land.
Together with 11-year-old Edmund, the youngest member of the family, he had fun building a bicycle from recycled materials.
On Edmund’s advice, what had started out as a hobby became the perfect means of transport to escape Germany and return home to Italy.
Angelo kept this story to himself until, in 1960, married with six children, he received a letter from Edmund. They remained friends until Angelo’s funeral in 1998.
The two families would not meet again until 2015, when Angelo’s son Moreno, my father, visited Edmund’s son Uwe in Minden, northern Germany. Together they went to the Bergen-Belsen memorial, where Angelo had been a prisoner.
Back at Moreno’s home in northern Italy, the bicycle is finally finished. The whole family uses it on the country roads around Mantua.