Students from the Fiorentino, Marconi, and Penna institutes, together with students from Besta Gloriosi, took part in a reading/narrative performance inspired by La Storia by Elsa Morante.
The performance was a hybrid form combining narration (illustrating the historical context), literary reading (excerpts from the novel), and digital documentation (video interviews and photographs).
Several female students from the different schools acted as co-interpreters, addressing the theme of the atrocities of war and racial persecution. However, a central focus was placed on violence against women, as the novel opens with the violence committed by a German soldier against Ida, the protagonist.
La Storia reaches one of its pivotal moments in the episode of the Allied landing in Salerno, which made it possible to connect the fictional narrative with the history of the local territory
A performance and an on line exhibition
Ida and the Others is a journey into the collective imagination: the war “afterwards.”
A war not told at the moment of combat, but on the day after, through the gaze of writers and filmmakers. From Neorealism—which made Italian cinema a universal voice—to more recent works, this exhibition moves through stories and images that still question the drama of the Second World War today.
The narrative structure is inspired by La Storia by Elsa Morante, a story that places the consequences of war at its center: violence against the civilian population, deportations and the persecution of minorities, the partisan struggle, loss, and wounds that continue to bleed even after the end of the conflict.
At the core lies the pain of women.
Victims of direct and indirect violence, deprived of their bodies, their loved ones, and their future, women bear the heaviest and longest-lasting burden of war.
September 1943: everything changes.
1943 and Operation Avalanche marked a turning point.
Until then, Italy had experienced the war mainly through newspaper reports and letters from soldiers at the front; now it discovered war within its own cities—through bombings, air-raid sirens, roundups, and sealed freight cars heading toward Germany.
It discovered the abyss of evil, but also the birth of a new consciousness, paid for with the blood of young people in the mountains and of those who remained defenseless in towns along the Nazi retreat—ordinary men and women.
1945: the war is over.
But for many, it continues. The residue of the violence inflicted during the war years continues to cast a long shadow over people’s destinies.
Ida and the Others was conceived by Carlo Bruno; on line version French translation by Mariangela Rubino.
Authors’ Note
This narrative was designed for schools, to share with students a passion for reading, music, and cinema. In addition to this web version, a “performative” version is available and can be staged live. The script and supporting materials can be requested from the cultural association Mubat.
Sources are cited primarily through the use of the free encyclopedia Wikipedia, which this year celebrates the twentieth anniversary of its founding on January 15.