QUESTE COSE NON AVVENNERO MAI MA SONO SEMPRE

Italy | 2025 | 65 min | col. | Italian

Three characters in the post-industrial outskirts of Taranto share the same condition of exile, unbeknownst to themselves: a young man explores the landscape through a recorder, mapping sounds; a young woman gets lost among woods and nocturnal rituals; a visually-impaired person caresses the leaves of his vegetable garden, which he tends with enthusiasm and dedication. Landscapes suspended between sea and concrete, old military outposts, and dilapidated farmhouses become the setting for a waiting caught between fleeing and staying for good. The film alternates silences, minimal gestures, and acoustic fragments through an editing that interweaves intimacy and allegory, revealing the conflict between attraction and repulsion towards one’s own city. A place that is at once beloved and despised, distant and inevitable, Taranto is the symbol of a broader condition of alienation and belonging. These Things Never Happened But Have Always Been is a poetic and visionary tale that transforms fragility into a potential metamorphosis. (T.P.)