The set is that of the working-class neighborhood of Bolognina and the real gym in the protagonist’s life is Bolognina Boxe
A fist with the glove against social marginalization. The documentary Romina, directed by Valerio Lo Muzio and Michael Petrolini, goes to the Biografilm Festival 2024 in Bologna. Tranche de vie of a South American girl (Romina Cabezas Navarrete), a second generation immigrant, who is a good boxer and barely dodges the blow of her beloved mother who suddenly has to serve a few years in prison. The set is that of the working-class neighborhood of Bolognina, in Bologna, and the real gym, much of Romina’s life happens there, is Bolognina Boxe.
The family around the protagonist is large, the melting pot as well, but it is also the turn of the gym, a sporting and existential prospect for 300 foreign girls and boys, to succumb to the blows of rent costs (but wasn’t Bolognina popular?) and the Arpa data exceeded, ending up protesting even in the city council at Palazzo d’Accursio. The (difficult) life of marginality (black and white) as a symbol and example of the arduous suburban integration todaymoreover for Bolognina boxing just a stone’s throw from the glittering city center.
Several matches in the ring followed with the video camera but without the worry of victory (or defeat), many close-ups (and dialogues) to reproduce the dust and sweat of reality, Romina finds in the main interpreter, so elusive and cold, a narrative ideal type that would work in any Italian metropolis. “We grow up with the myth that the realization of one’s dreams is within everyone’s reach – explained director Lo Muzio -. However, I believe that the reality is much more complex. There is a generation that is not allowed to dream, their life is made up of precariousness, of underpaid work, exploitation, trampled rights and overpriced rents, even in what has been defined as ‘the most progressive city in Italy’ ”.
Appointment today at 6.45pm at the Sala Mastroianni of the Cinema Lumière in Bologna.
