A film by Luca Magi
Genre: documentary
Format: HD
Lenght: 67’

Synopsis

Rostom is a night shelter for homeless people located on the outskirts of a big Italian city. In the dark of the night, the faces of the people who stay there for just one night and the faces of those who have made the place their home are illuminated by the glow of cigarettes and their voices can be heard. Men and women with difficult pasts are exiled to a present life of perpetual waiting. A lost galaxy in which both the past and the future seem out of reach.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

For years I have worked as both a director and a social worker and for the last five years I have worked at Rostom in Bologna. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know hundreds of people who have stayed in the shelter and to share intimate details of their lives. The shelter can be a rough and difficult place, the guests are mostly lonely and marginalised people. I find it striking that behind the fragility of these men and women, behind their solitude there is a hidden depth: a sense of rebellion, something futile and often destructive, but at the same time, when seen from up close, as in my case, able to reveal the true essence of things, able to transmit something moving and vital.

The film is narrated by David, a homeless English man who has spent the previous seven years travelling. He arrives at the Rostom shelter exhausted but nurturing the desire of getting back on his feet, and eager to tell his story. Using a tape recorder he keeps a diary of his impressions, reflections on life, his dreams, and his encounters with the other guests in the shelter.

Director | LUCA MAGI

A graduate in Cinematic Animation, Luca Magi has worked as an animator and illustrator with various publishers. In 2012 he directed Anita, which was selected for the 30th Torino Film Festival and for DocLisboa. Stories of the Half-Light, his most recent work as a director, was conceived during his time spent as a social worker in a night shelter for the homeless. He currently teaches at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino.

LOCATION, CHARACTERS | ROSTOM

Rostom is a homeless shelter run by the charity organisation Piazza Grande in Bologna. Its guests have urgent, pressing needs: men and women with social, economic, and psychiatric problems, health problems and addictions, people who have spent time in prison and people who have had difficult, often dramatic lives.
The shelter owes its names to a former guest, Rostom Mollah, a Bangladeshi man who died on the streets of Bologna in the winter of 2013. Due to the nature of their work in the shelter, the social workers develop a close relationship with many of the guests. For many of the shelter users, particularly those who have spent a long time at the shelter, this relationship with the social workers to a certain extent fills the gap left by the family ties and friendships which they have often lost.