Trieste in-between states (2016)

The film is an impressionistic documentary about Trieste, a city in Northern Italy, with a unique history of fluctuating fortunes, positioned on cross roads of different cultures and political states. The fascination to visit Trieste came from a conversation I had with the writer John Berger, on a train from Geneva to Milan, one summer day in 2007. Finally in 2014 the desire to visit the city became irresistible. Finally I embarked on a journey, accompanied by the writer Deborah Levy. The Trieste we encountered was just like we hoped for and more: a liminal place, "a hallucinatory city, where fantasy easily brushes with fact". The film weaves a narrative from fragments of personal stories of its inhabitants, the larger historical events such as the flight of the Jewish people during WW2, as well as the fictional story of "A" from Deborah Levy's Swallowing Geography. And just like "A" in Levy' story, the journey to Trieste becomes a search for a "redemptive homeland", this mythical point of arrival, which remains forever out of reach. And out of this search a story is born.