This week on “The Cineamerican Dream,” your hosts, Trina and Brian, will be talking about the 1994 Italian film, Lamerica. The film begins with the backdrop of Albania following the fall of communism. Gino and Fiore, two opportunistic Italians, enter the country with the hopes of starting up a phony luxury shoe production company. They begin by searching for someone from Albania to act as the figurehead of the company, who they can manipulate to do their own bidding. In their search, they find Spiro, a presumably delusional old man who can’t recall his age correctly and believes he is still fighting in a war. They recruit Spiro to lead the company, making decisions for him and forcing him to sign various documents. However, their schemes are foiled when their so-called “chairman” escapes their grasp and tries to find his way back to Italy. To their confusion, Spiro actually turns out to be Michele Talarico, a deserter from the fascist, Mussolini-era Italian army who has been stuck in an Albania gulag for most of his life. This revelation, combined with the news that the funding for their sham shoe company has fallen out, leads Spiro and Gino scrambling to find a way back to Italy. The rest of the film follows Spiro and Gino traveling through Albania on foot, forging a profound relationship with one another as they jointly struggle to find food, shelter, and understanding of their shared Italian identity — even if it is separated by decades of time and vastly different political regimes.
We’ll be talking about capitalism, communism, and the complicated relationship between Italian history, America, and Albania. Make sure to tune in to hear about how the director, Gianni Amelio, used special filming techniques, hired nonprofessional actors to star in the film, and even included old fascist propaganda, to make Lamerica come to life.
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