DigitaLife receives enthusiastic applause after its première at the Anteo Cinema

The screening was followed by enthusiastic applause and a lot of moist eyes. DigitaLife premiered at the Anteo Cinema, which is a cultural institution in Milan.

The film, which was directed by Francesco Raganato and produced by VareseWeb, in collaboration with RAI Cinema and Fondazione Ente dello Spettacolo, presents how digital technology has changed people’s lives. This was a team project, a puzzle made up of more than 50 stories that had been selected from the hundreds gathered in almost two years of production. The result of this project was a single, global story that literally won over the audience in Milan, who filled the Sala President.

In the room, there were also some of the people who appeared in the film, including Roberto Andreoli, Paolo Picchio, Massimo Russo, Nicoletta Crisponi and Marco Crepaldi. And there were others who had worked on making this film, the director, Francesco Raganato, the executive producer and director of VareseNews, Marco Giovannelli, Vittorio Cosma, who produced the soundtrack, Diego Zucchetto and Marco Corso, who did the editing, Antonio D’Ambrosio, who was responsible for the sound editing, the screenwriter, Manuel Sgarella, and the secretarial assistant, Federica Bonada.

The event was attended by Donatella Vergari, the president of Terre des Hommes Italia, a partner association in the DigitaLife project, and Roberta Cocco, the councillor in charge of Digital Transformation and Civic Services in Milan.

“Congratulations for the project; I’d really like you to be present at the next Milano Digital Week,” the councillor stated. “We’re undergoing a phase of great transformation and digitalisation also concerns the administration and the citizens. My duty is to deal with these themes every day, improving the relationship and services. This film is an incentive to work for the City of Milan.”

The film began as a “foolish” idea, according to Marco Giovannelli and Francesco Raganato, who were the first to talk, on stage immediately, after the film. “There was no other way to speak about the Internet,” the director explained. “There are many documentaries that talk about digital technology, but none of them had ever bothered to take so many lives and put them together.”

“Great! Well done,” said Massimo Russo, from the stage. “I like to remember the words of one philosopher who, when talking about life, no longer distinguishes between virtual and real, online and offline, but talks about ‘onlife’. This film does the same.”

The film starts with a rapid sequence, like a mini-story, about bread. This product, which is fundamental to our diet, is the symbol of so many transformations, from the wheat field, to the flour, to how it comes to our tables after being made. Today, everything runs on digital technology, but, in the end, at the heart of life, there is energy, there are the lives of people, who work and share the changes we experience.

Connections are the guiding theme, but it is not only about technology, which is also essential in order to experience the change; DigitaLife presents the stories of a lot of people whose lives have really been changed by the Internet, and not always positively. The film is not afraid of dealing with difficult and complex themes, like cyberbullying, illness, death and defeat, because, in any case, these are a part of life.

Through the many episodes, also thanks to some recurring, hard-hitting stories that bind the film together, a picture is built up that lasts an hour and ten minutes. The more than five hundred viewers on the two evenings (the first, a private premiere in Varese, and now the public premiere in Milan) were moved and amazed by the work done. Observing a number of them at both showings provided a lovely demonstration of this.

Now the film is starting its tour. On 22 January, it will be at the Sala Trevi, in Rome, and on the 23rd, it is coming back to Varese, to the MIV Cinema. From there, it is starting a tour of already 15 venues throughout Italy, and others will be added in the next few days.