La Restanza

Alessandra Coppola

Salento, far south of Italy: an area as beautiful to visit, as harsh to live in. A land of labour exploitation and migration. A group of young people in their thirties gathers after a village feast. They have one certainty, they don't want to leave, they want to remain in this place which says: "nothing has ever happened here and nothing will ever happen". They will prove it isn't. They persuade the elders to join them and put their overgrown plot at the service of the community. The land becomes the bond between those who do not want to leave and the elderly who remain, between migrants, young people in search of prospects and passing by strangers. Castiglione becomes the village of Restanza, the art of staying while continuing to move, the art of being together.