In honor of the “Giornata della Memoria” – Holocaust Remembrance Day (observed globally on January 27) – the Consulate of Italy in Detroit and the Dante Alighieri Society of Michigan commemorated those Italians who suffered persecution as a result of the Racial Laws imposed by the Fascist government and under the Nazi occupation during World War II.
January 2023 Program
- Twenty Minutes
Short film directed by Daniele Esposito, 20 min. – In Italian with English Subtitles
October 16, 1943, Rome. It is early morning. Lea, waking from a nightmare, hears a knock at the door. Two German soldiers give her a leaflet: Lea and her husband Enzo have twenty minutes to leave their lives behind and follow them. But the names of their children, Cesare and Fiorella, are not mentioned in the list held by the German soldiers. Lea and Enzo are undecided about what to do: in the heat of the moment, they will be forced to make the most difficult life decision.
~~~~ A conversation with directors Daniele Esposito and Karen Di Porto.
- Piazza Documentary directed by Karen Di Porto, 60 min. In Italian with English subtitles
“Piazza” is the vital heart of Roman Judaism. A small area in the center of a big city with a difficult and ancient history. “Piazza” is what Roman Jews call the ghetto area where they were restricted for three hundred years and which was the scene of the tragic round-ups by the Nazis in 1943. Interviews with the people of “Piazza” reveal a lively present and a past of pain and pride, reconstructed through the daughter’s gaze of one of its most notable inhabitants. A historical and intimate journey to discover a world that, seen from the inside, appears closer to us, a particular Jewish reality that symbolizes the world diaspora.