DEMOS: Solidarity in Europe is our new documentary directed by the Italian director Berardo Carboni, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme.

Ken Loach, Yanis Varoufakis, Mary Kaldor and Gesine Schwan are some of the key figures featuring the documentary.

1. The Movie

2008-2018. Looking back at ten years of economic and political crisis, Europe might appear like a continent pulling itself apart. North versus South, East versus West, citizens versus institutions. And yet, these years have also shown the hidden vitality of European citizens acting across borders.

The new documentary of European Alternatives is presented as a real-life journey of the main character, Lorenzo Marsili, who has been active for over ten years in the promotion of a political and active Europe bottom-up. The story unfolds following the main character in his trip, showing hopeful instances of transnational actions cross Europe. The documentary portrays mobilisations that come from the years of experience of the main character on one hand, and from the results of the academic research ‘TransSOL’ (funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme) on the other.

Synopsis

The inaction of European nation-states and institutions to the social and economic problems that European citizens suffer since 2009, drive the main character of this movie, Lorenzo Marsili, to travel across Europe and meet the bottom-up initiatives that are bringing social solutions where the states are failing. The contradiction between the institutions and the self organised actions of European citizens will be presented throughout the documentary and the eyes of the main character in his trip across the continent. The documentary will not merely show what is happening on the ground, but bring and propose concrete solutions for a genuine pan-European approach. There are three main areas of citizens organisations and mobilisations that the documentary will look at that are also part of the TransSOL research: migration, disability and unemployment.

Treatment

The whole documentary is based on two key ideas: that of the necessity of building a European demos, and that of its current absence. The story is built around the journey of two people: Lorenzo Marsili, mentioned above, and Morjana Alaoui, a Moroccan film star. They are two real flaneurs of this century, whose objective is not that of Baudelaire or Benjamin of becoming pavement botanists, or discovering new metropolitan secrets and their singularity, but is rather to find out whether Europe really can be considered a city on its own, if a common demos exists. Lorenzo does this in dialogue with different scholars, politicians, artists and activists who – in their different fields – have faced these topics, trying to trace connections, observing practices, and listening to different people met by chance or appointment. The paths of ‘the ghost’ (Alaoui) and those of Marsili will continuously cross throughout the documentary, creating a surreal but evocative atmosphere, able to convey the manifesto of a Europe which is not based on fixed borders of the countries which are part of the Union, which has the ambition to share not only a system of economic rules, but rather a vision of the world based on solidarity.

Contact us

Do you have any questions about the project? Please send an email to m.cillero@euroalter.com

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 649435.