The Image Machine of Alfredo C.

Overview

April 1939. Fascist Italy occupies Albania. Thousands of Italian workers, settlers and technicians are transferred to the country. November 1944, Albania is liberated. The new Communist government closes the borders and places dozens of conditions on Italy for the repatriation of its citizens. In 1945 27,000 Italian veterans and civilians were still held in Albania. Among them there is a cameraman, Alfredo C. An operator of the Fascist propaganda effort, he has been traveling around Albania with his movie camera for five years. Before that, for almost two decades, he had immortalised the great machine of the regime. Now, by a twist of fate, being the only cameraman around, Alfredo has been asked to work on behalf of Communist propaganda. Shut up in his storeroom, surrounded by thousands of reels of film, Alfredo watches what he has shot again on an old Moviola. It is his film that we are watching. And perhaps, not his alone.