(26 January 2016) “In life, in order to understand, to really understand the world, you must die at least once. So it’s better to die young, when there’s still time left to recover and live again,” says Giorgio’s father in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, a 1970 movie by Vittorio De Sica, based on the 1962 novel by Giorgio Bassani. The film received the Berlin Golden Bear in 1971 and the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1972. Set in Ferrara in 1938-1943, the movie narrates the horrors of fascist persecution, the enactment of the racial laws, the cruelty of history, the charm of youth and the dreams of a wealthy Italian Jewish family, the Finzi-Continis, based in Ferrara. Their story, and that of young Giorgio, is how on January 27, the Italian Cultural Institute of Lisbon has chosen to commemorate Remembrance Day, with the screening of De Sica’s masterpiece at 7pm.
