The Avdy Family
Old water tower,
18400 Prokuplje,
Serbia

2011, Italy, 13 minutes
Short documentary
High-definition video
Directed and produced by Francesco Ferri

Cinematography and sound by Francesco Ferri
Editing by Bruno Chiaravalloti
With the support of Fondazione aiutare i bambini

The family gets up in the morning, get dressed, washed, father, mother, sons and daughters in the same room, elbow to elbow (because the room is small), the mother prepares breakfast. And still in the same room, heavy with the nocturnal exhalation of their mass of bodies, breakfast is consumed… In the evening, among the many smells of the day, the family returns to its chaste bed. All those who succeed can be crammed into a single bed (if they have it) and the others sit on the floor. And this is the cycle of their existence, month after month, year after year, because they never take a vacation, if not when they are evicted.

Jack London, “The People of the Abyss”, 1902

SYNOPSIS

Far from the Est London of the beginning of the century described by Jack London, the situation seems to be inexorably the same. Prokuplje, southern Serbia, poor city: electricity blackout, poor water supply, old schools, a large part of the population is gypsies, they live in two large ghetto neighborhoods.
The Avdy family refugee from Kosovo, a Catholic mother and a Muslim father, lives in an abandoned railway tower without water and electricity. A sympathetic journey of twelve days in their daily life.

SCREENING

Videolibrary Festival dei Popoli, Firenze, 2011
Notte sotto le stelle, Spinone al Lago (BG), 2011