Les Unwanted de Europa

Following the path of two different 1940 migrations that moved in opposite directions from the same ridge of the Pyrenees separating Spain from France, Fabrizio Ferraro’s LES UNWANTED DE EUROPA creates a short circuit in space and time that links directly to the present day without ever seeking an explicit connection to it.
While the Spanish Republicans sought shelter in France, various groups of Jews tried to reach Spain in the hope of travelling on from there to more distant and safer destinations. Among them was Walter Benjamin. What we see on the screen is not merely an attempt to fill in a biographical gap in the last days of Benjamin’s life. Ferraro invites us instead to indulge all our senses.
Choosing black and white and skillfully alternating between wide shots and close-ups, he creates a calm and sensitive elegy, imbued with humanity. The border between one country and another thus becomes the border between life and death, between the uncertainty of being human and the human being’s vain longing for transcendence. There are no quotations from Benjamin’s work in the film’s dialogues, yet the lines recited by the actors are of a rare authenticity. (Maria Giovanna Vagenas)

In the presence of Fabrizio Ferraro, Fabio Parente (producer) and Luis Miñarro.