Director: Dagmawi Yimer
Italy / 2014 / 56 min
Va’ Pensiero – Walking stories is an interwoven account of two racist attacks in Milan and Florence and the victims’ painful attempts to piece the fragments of their lives back together. In central Milan, Mohamed Ba, a 50 year old senegalese griot (bard), actor and teacher and resident in Italy for 14 years, is knifed in broad daylight on May 31, 2009. In Florence, residents Mor e Cheikj, also immigrants from Senegal, are beaten on December 31, 2011 whilst working in the San Lorenzo market. This powerful account brings together the overlapping stories of the three protagonists’ ordeal and their enduring hope of building a life in Italy, despite the fear and uncertainty of suddenly being plunged back to the moment of the attacks by one look or gesture. The director Dagmawi Yimer, a refugee from Ethiopia, shows us what violence looks like through the eyes of the victim.