«Siamo Italiani»

Welcome to our weekly film recommendation! This week we dive into the lives of Italian immigrants with «Siamo Italiani» by Alexander J. Seiler († 22 Nov 2018 ), Rob Gnant and June Kovach. We see their lives between exclusion and integration - and how much mistrust the "foreigners" faced.

We hope you enjoy the film!

About «Siamo Italiani»:

«A small master nation sees itself in danger: workers have been called, and people are coming,» is how Max Frisch had aptly commented on the film. More than 500,000 Italians lived in Switzerland in the mid-1960s. They were considered a «problem». A booming economy needed workers - the Swiss, a small people of accentuated idiosyncrasy, perceived them as foreign bodies.

In 1964, the discussion about «guests» who were only tolerated in Switzerland as workers was already well advanced. As early as 1961, the Federal Council called for moderation in migration. And in the public debate it was pointed out that the «number of foreigners had risen significantly faster than [the] net social product» (NZZ). These are the same sounds we are hearing this (election) year from SVP and others. Again, people are made into numbers that can be shifted back and forth. And this is exactly what Alexander J. Seiler, Rob Gnant and June Kovach wanted to counteract with their film. They show us the people behind political buzzwords.

- Samir

For us, making a documentary film meant illuminating marginal areas of society and giving a voice to the respective people. A documentary film is a document, as the name suggests. We were driven by a social and political impulse to show a different face of Switzerland.

- Alexander J. Seiler (2014)