Il ghetto di Venezia. 500 anni di vita (2015)

Reconstructs the history of the oldest ghetto of Europe. 2016 will be its Quincentennial. Excellent witnesses, custodians of the memory and of the complex evolution of the Jewish community in Venice, will focus on a theme such as the origins, the relationship between the Jews and the Government of the Serenissima, between Jews of different languages and cultures, the great figures in the history of the ghetto, the permitted trades, the money, the cabala, the food, the Jewish Venetian language, the persecutions and integration. We will tell of the daily life, the atmosphere and places of the Ghetto, and some moments of identity: a Bar Mitzvah, and a funeral. The narrative track will follow the path of discovery of Lorenzo, a teenage Jewish boy from New York. Lorenzo is sent to Venice to learn about the origins of his family, closely related to the history of Ghetto. Lorenzo is guided by his Aunt and two young Venetian cousins who offer him the stimulus to enter more and more into a world unknown to him. Accustomed to a city in continual evolution, which leaves no strong traces of time behind it, Lorenzo remains fascinated by the stratification of the memories and the stories. Stories which, sometimes take form, like revelations evoked by his imagination, thanks to a historical reconstruction realized in animation. The history of the Venice ghetto offers us an opportunity to reflect on the story of an immigration and of a slow integration, an example of the enormous wealth that the exchange of diverse cultures can give us.