The voices, stories and testimonies of those who experienced the flood first-hand: stories that are engraved in the heart of our city, in the memory of individuals and also of the community. And so the second evening screening of the docufilm ‘I saw the end of the world’ in Faenza, after the premiere last May 27th at the Sarti cinema, also saw a large turnout of the public: the 350 seats available from the Il Raggio Verde film club to the inside the Borghesi arena filled quickly and many remained standing. On Tuesday evening, 804 euros were also collected which will be donated to the fund made available in the aftermath of the flood by Qn – Il Resto del Carlino and thanks to which various reconstruction interventions in the affected areas have already been financed.
On the screen, Faenza occupies a large portion of the documentary film, through the testimonies of Silvia Dal Santerno who was saved after hours on the roof with her cats, of Isabella Salvini who married her husband Giorgio as a displaced person at the Cavallino hotel and of Giacinto Bosi and Giulio Nicolò: the second, a carabiniere, saved the first by taking him away from his house in the village while the water continued to rise.
After the screening there was also space for a moment of discussion in which Silvia Dal Santerno, the commander of the provincial police Lorenza Mazzotti, the commissioner Stefano Bondi, the inspector Giacomo Sebastiani and the agent Michele Vernocchi participated. That night the men of the provincial police, with boats usually used for fishing in the valley, saved 122 people. “At a certain point they called us, they told us to stop. We had been out and about for hours and hours – said Commissioner Stefano Bondi – but we refused, there was still a need. The colleague took the radio from which they asked us to come back and he dropped her in the water. Of all the ailments, I didn’t feel a single one that night. I was like a kid driven by adrenaline, we did what had to be done.” The evening was also an opportunity for some of the people saved to meet again after a year with those who rescued them, retracing what happened together in a cathartic way.
The documentary and podcast ‘I saw the end of the world’ was produced by Qn – Il Resto del Carlino with the support of the Bcc Ravennate Forlivese and Imolese and created by the deputy director of the Resto del Carlino Valerio Baroncini and Marco Santangelo. The original music is by Marco Reno Solferini.
