Seduced by sounds, Viola started collecting sound bytes of ambience and voices during her professional photographic trips. Her passion for storytelling, expressed in pictures with the reportage, is naturally transmitted through sounds in radio documentary. She has started telling some personal stories, integrated into the social context of the times, on the national Italian radio.
RADIO
RADIO PROGRAMS LIST:
- RADIO TRE RAI – TRE SOLDI: “Mio Fratello Zef”
- RADIO TRE RAI – TRE SOLDI: “I cavalli scalzi di Fahnnestock ranch”
- RADIO TRE RAI – TRE SOLDI: “Una settimana al City Plaza Hotel”
- RADIO TRE RAI – TRE SOLDI: “Tribù Tattoo – le storie dietro i tatuaggi”
- RADIO TRE RAI – TRE SOLDI: “RISALENTO, verso un nuovo paesaggio pugliese”
- RFI – SI LOIN SI PROCHE: “SALENTO, le Finistère des possibles”
RADIO TRE RAI - TRE SOLDI: "Mio Fratello Zef"
My Brother Zef
My Brother Zef is an audio documentary broadcast on the national Italian radio RAI RADIO 3. In 1999, she went to the south of Italy in order to volunteer in a refugee camp. Her secret desire was to make a photographic reportage of the situation.
Her camera, however, was soon taken away from her and she was sent to work as an Italian teacher in a class for refugee minors. In the class there was also a young 15-year- old Kossovar. Having escaped from the Balkan War he had arrived on the coast of Puglia in a rubber boat. A deep friendship began between the photographer and the refugee which led Viola to convince her parents to become Zef’s foster parents.
Once in Turin, with his Italian family, Zef started a new life. The audio documentary allows the protagonists to tell their own story and reserves pleasant and surprising touches.
First Episode
“You are my sister and even if you don’t understand what I’m saying to you, you will always be my sister.” Zef’s voice is directed at Viola as he speaks in his language. They are drinking a grappa in the Italian pizzeria where he works.
“In the refugee camps there were many minors. Why did you choose me?” asks Zef. ” I saw in your eyes that we could get along well together and that you needed a chance”. The Italian photographer and the Kossovar man are reminiscing about the moment they met. Zef tells why he decided to leave his country and describes his trip from Albania to Italy.
Second Episode
Viola’s family welcomes Zef into their house in Turin. He enrols in the Italian school and gets his degree.
On one of his birthdays they all go to celebrate at a pizzeria next to the house: this is the future work place of Zef and the place where he will meet his wife …..
Third Episode
The pizzeria has been Zef’s work place for many years now. His hard-working nature quickly convinced the owner of the restaurant to hire him and soon after the owner’s daughter fell in love with him. While Viola is helping him in the kitchen Zef tells some stories of his past life in Kosovo. “A tree that forget its roots is a dry tree. With all the flaws that my country can have, it is my country, I will always feel at home there.”
Fourth Episode
Viola was going to Kosovo for her job and decided to meet the real family of her brother. Zef, who had not seen them in a long time draws a map on a napkin to help her find the half-burned house in the middle of the Balkan hills. The encounter was intense and full of emotions.
Zef’s Italian wife has also visited Kosovo with her husband and she tells how different and sometimes shocking this experience was for her.
Fifth Episode
Viola and Gaya reminisce while looking at the photo album of the marriage between Gaya, the daughter of the pizzaiolo, and Zef. Gaya talks about the day when she first saw Zef and how their love story began.
There is a party going on in the restaurant. It’s the birthday of their first daughter and Gaya is pregnant again. “This great, little love…” Zef is singing his favourite Italian song. “Did you realize, at the beginning, what the meaning of the adoption could be?” asked Viola’s mother to her daughter. “I’m a only child mom, I always dreamed about having a brother….”
