27/11/2013 - The documentary by Ferrone and Manzolini tells the story of a barber who in 1957, together with two friends, took part in the festival for socialist youth in the Soviet capital

Applause at the Turin Film Festival for the second Italian film in competition, Il treno va a Mosca [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a documentary that tells the story of a communist barber from Alfonsine, a village in Emilia-Romagna, who in 1957, together with two filmmaker friends, decided to go to the capital of the Soviet Union for the youth socialist festival.  

An attempt at “making that desire for utopia bloom” which, even if just for practical reasons, the young directors in their thirties Federico Ferrone and Michele Manzolini have never heard of. With the help of never-before-seen 8mm footage taken by the main character Sauro Ravaglia (class of 1935) and his two fellow travellers Enzo Pasi and Luigi Pattuelli starting in the 1950s (kept in the Home Movies national family archives), and narration from the main character today, the two documentary filmmakers have managed to build an eye-opening film about a man from the post-World War II world, brought up in the cult of socialism. The film opens with footage from the Palmiro Togliatti who during a meeting in Rome asked all attendees to unite in a salute for the Soviet Union. Sauro and his friends see the USSR as a world of fraternity and equality and the great trip that will make them discover the truth. Sauro sees Russian workers living in cabins, loaded in and out of overcrowded trucks to go and work in factories.

Ferrone and Manzolini, who directed the 2007 documentary Merica together and have worked as directors and producers for the television network Al Jazeera, deliver a vigorous visual experience, emotionally investing themselves in a 20^th century story, making archival footage appealing thanks to the editing work of Sara Fgaier, sound work by Diego Schiavo and original score by Francesco Serra. Il treno va a Mosca is a co-production between Kiné (IT) and Vezfilm (UK), created in 2010 by the directors with colleagues Francesco Ragazzi and Magdalena Szymkow, in association with Apapaja and the Cineteca Foundation in Bologna. It will be distributed in Italy by the Luce-Cinecittà Institute.

(Translated from Italian)