Eurotel

  • Director: Giuseppe Tedeschi
    Cinematography: Daniel Mazza
    Editing: Emanuele Vernillo

  • duration: 38'
  • production year: 2007
  • original title: Eurotel
  • genre: Current Affairs, Globalisation, Human Interest, Migration, Social

A former hotel is converted into an apartment complex in the wake of an economic crisis, and the new 'guests' must confront the past without knowing the history of their new home. Eurotel tells the story of a building located in the heart of Merano, a small, blithe city in the extreme north of Italy. Once a 4-star hotel, the building was converted to an apartment complex - "a heap of people" as one of our characters defines it. What was once the Eurotel is now populated by a curious mix of Italians and foreigners. Characters include a Russian woman about to return to Russia with her new husband, whom she met in Italy; an American masseuse who's decided to live there because he feels more "comfortable" among foreigners; a Pakistani man who, after working in the mines of Germany, came to Italy in search of work and now awaits retirement; a retired Italian trying to convince his wife in Santo Domingo to move to Italy; German tourists who buy apartments there and visit the place as if it were still a hotel. The film's characters talk about themselves and what it's like to live there; they reveal their hopes and describe the difficulties in getting along with their neighbors. One character tells of the building's glorious past, of the rich who came to spend their vacations at the hotel, which once had the semblance of a cruise ship - whose voyage came to an end in the late 1980s, when, in the wake of an economic crisis, the hotel was "dramatically" forced to close.

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