Brucia ancora dentro (It still burns inside, 2023) is an essential, ruthless and powerful documentary. It recounts the last twenty years of Milanese struggles and protests, evoking the memory of Dax, Davide Cesare, an anti-fascist activist attacked and killed on 16 March 2003, at the age of twenty-six, by a group of neo-fascists.
Emotion, but above all determination, shine in the stories of the friends and comrades who remember Davide: his militancy in the ORSo collective in Milan, his effort in the housing struggle and in the anti-eviction pickets, and his anti-fascist and anti-capitalist activism. Rosa, the mother, speaks quietly, but her voice has the power of a thousand cries. She remembers Davide, and his constant commitment to others, always at the forefront of the struggle, never backing down a step. I keep walking, she says, with my son’s ideas by my side.
Blending archival photos and footage with contemporary interviews, the documentary not only narrates Dax, but also the enormous legacy that he left behind and that influenced the Milanese political scene, twenty years after his murder. In our time, when fascism and racism are openly resurfacing, the anti-fascist struggle is an urgent imperative. This is well understood by those very young people who, although they never had the possibility of meeting Davide, courageously share his ideas. Because Dax does not belong to the past, “it is a fire that burns within us and we want it to spread.”
We talked with the directors of Brucia ancora dentro, Francesco Manzato, Paolo Pioltelli and Filippo Repishti. Here is what they told us.
G. Olmo Stuppia and Clara Reghellin, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): How did the need for this production arise?
Francesco Manzato, Paolo Pioltelli and Filippo Repishti (MPR): We are part of the collective of F.O.A. Boccaccio 003 in Monza, a social space that has always supported the DAX Association in the construction of the anniversaries that every 16 March commemorate the murder of Davide Cesare “Dax” and the events of The Black Night of Milan*. In the spring of 2022, the Association proposed us, knowing our recent experience in film production for making the documentary Hurricane In The Eyes – A Look at Milan Hardcore Punk 2015-2020 (2021), to collaborate to develop and update the 20-minute short documentary The Black Night of Milan, which they made immediately after the events of 2003. We saw this proposal as an unprecedented opportunity to elaborate something both to remember the events of 16 March 2003 and to reflect on the value that the concept of memory around the name of Dax has taken on in the following years. The need that prompted us to create what is now Brucia ancora dentro project was to make a film that would be, above all, a political tool to speak to new generations. We did not want a simple chronicle of the events, but a political analysis through the voices of the protagonists, to make the experience of 2003 an important brick on which we could build our collective memory and offer a glimpse of the future. We strongly believe in the possibility of a militant and political cinema that claims its own worldview, and this project is an example of this kind of language.
(UM): At a diegetic level, the images speak of fire, spirals, rituals and a Milan that seems to be poised between a conflicted past and a now sprawling capitalism.
(MPR): As in our previous project, Hurricane In The Eyes, one of the protagonists of this film is the city of Milan. There is no doubt that our city is now recognized in Italy and in Europe as one of the economic engines of European capitalism. A city where the capitals of high finance are centralized, a city that transitions from one big event to another, a city that daily tramples on its past by normalizing and transforming working-class neighborhoods into “districts” of food, design, and fashion. In this bleak and hypertrophic picture, we believe in an action within the contradictions of the metropolis, we believe in the reconstruction of supportive communities and in the reorganization of conflict. Rental costs, an exclusionary city model, and a polluted and toxic environment are the litmus test of how wrong this development model is. But the demonstration for Dax that saw 10,000 people marching through the city in March under the slogan “anti-fascism is anti-capitalism” are a proof that, in the end, we are there, we keep alive that fire of revolt that “still burns inside” and we can still make a change.
(UM): Female figures. Which is their role?
(MPR): In these two decades and within the film production and distribution process, Dax’s female comrades and friends are tireless protagonists of the whole path of memory and struggle: whoever watches the film cannot fail to grasp this force. But certainly it is the figure of Rosa, Davide’s mother, who particularly captures the viewer’s attention. Her point of view, firm and determined, but at the same time gentle and maternal, depicts an extraordinary female figure, lucid in re-elaborating pain and proud in continuing her own path of life.
(UM): What does it mean to be a militant in the era of Tik Tok and what goals did you achieve with the 130 thousand campaign?**
(MPR): Regarding this filmmaking experience, being militant means first of all approaching the entire production structure by rejecting profit mechanisms and, on the contrary, placing our work in the service of a cause that we feel is ours, such as supporting the 130 thousand solidarity campaign.
The fact that we decided to screen the film exclusively in the presence of the authors or protagonists constitutes a choice in stark contrast to the spread of online platforms: the society we are looking at is based on true and authentic human relationships, on complicity and affinity that can be built only by sharing real life experiences, without useless spectacularization.
(UM): Rule of Law and militancy, algorithms and big business, what are your thoughts as filmmakers?
(MPR): Rule of Law, constitution and democracy are concepts that over the years have completely lost meaning and contact with the mechanisms that govern our daily lives. It is up to us to contend with capital every inch of our existence, building community of intent and solidarity alliances with those close to us, giving back to the idea of social justice the centrality it deserves in guiding our choices. Cinema can be a solid ally in all this process. We do not trust institutions. We have always confided in what we can build independently, together with our brothers and sisters. “Small daily achievements” is said in the film: this is our algorithm.
* The name The Black Night of Milan (La Notte Nera di Milano) refers to the events that took place on the night of 16 March 2003, when some of Dax’s comrades, upon learning the news of the aggression he had suffered, met outside the San Paolo Hospital, where they were verbally and physically attacked by the police, with a confrontation that continued inside and outside the emergency room.
** The 130 thousand (130mila) solidarity campaign was established in 2011 with the aim of raising funds to cover the payment of the fine to which one of the comrades, at the end of the San Paolo Trial, was sentenced for the events of the night of 16 March 2003.
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