Ciao Italianista, I have another movie review for you. Emergency Exit: Young Italians Abroad is a 2014 documentary playing now on Amazon Prime Video. This film explores the reasons why young Italians have no hope for a future in Italy and are forced to go abroad for work.
Director Brunella Fili follows the lives of six young Italians who left Italy for a better future. The film takes us from Vienna to Paris, Tenerife, Bergen, London, and ends in New York. Six different stories with a familiar theme: finally hope and happiness to be able to work in their careers and support themselves, but all overcast by a great sadness not to be able to do this in their own country.
The Diaspora of the Young Italians
In the film, Bill Emmott from The Economist, explains why this diaspora is an Italian problem and not the result of globalization. And it is a diaspora that Italian institutions want to deny. Italy for decades has not invested in its youth. When Italians complete university ready for work, they find nothing. No jobs, no internships, not even part-time sales clerk jobs. They are very educated and qualified but there are zero opportunities for them.
Young Italians are forced to live at home. As the years pass by they are no longer so young but are still dependent on their parents. They can’t move out and support themselves like people their age in other countries. Young Italians can’t become independent. Or have a career. They can’t start a family because, without hope for the future, there is no hope to raise children.
One of the young Italians, Mauro, went to live in Paris in order to find work. He gladly pays his taxes in France because he can see that his tax money is being reinvested in the French economy and public infrastructure. In Italy, there is little motivation to pay taxes because there is never any evidence of where this money makes improvements.
The Italian Bureaucracy and Corruption
Italy has a very complicated bureaucracy. It takes years and years for projects to be funded and completed. They often never are and the money ends up lining the pockets of corrupt officials. Italy is a young republic with a fragile bureaucracy. But it operates under the thousand-year-old Roman law. So it has produced an apparatus of abnormal laws, entangling the bureaucracy in a labyrinth of rules procedures, and controls. This has led to corruption.
This complex and corrupt bureaucracy has also contributed to the decline of meritocracy. This makes it impossible for young Italians to enter and succeed in the workforce. It has also kept foreigners from trying to work in Italy and bring new ideas and energy to the Italian economy.
Attachment to Italy
The documentary also explores why Italians abroad are different from English, Spanish, French, and Americans abroad. Italians abroad miss their family, their friends, their climate, their food, their country. They want more than anything to have a career and be independent. But they want this in their own country surrounded by their families and friends and culture. It’s very sad for them to have to choose between career and independence and the love for their own country.
All people who leave the place where they were born and grew up feel displaced and nostalgic for their country but it is worse for Italians. This is easy to understand. Who would not want to live in a warm beautiful landscape with delicious food and rich culture and history? Family is still such a strong tie for Italians. In the film you see one young woman call her mother two times a day. Her French partner laughs and says he calls his mom maybe twice a month.
A Wasted Asset and Sadness
It’s sad that the Italian government has not invested in its own best asset — young qualified intelligent educated people with a desire to work. The rest of the world benefits as these young people take their knowledge, skills, and culture abroad. Even if they bring some sadness and loneliness.
All the stories show this sadness. Their eyes fill with tears as they speak. The music, by Gioacchino Balistreri, echoes this feeling. In one scene a group is watching the elections from an Italian cafe in Vienna. They hope for a change in leadership. They are disappointed. There will be no change.
Some Hope
Bill Emmott offers some hope when he talks about the Italians’ attachment to their country. He says, “It’s possible to activate that engagement, to organize amongst themselves, to connect in open networks with their friends, their families, with people they know in Italy, and to put on pressure for change.”
One of the young Italians, Chiara, goes to London to work. Before she arrived, everyone ate their lunches in their cubicles and worked. She proposed they all eat together in a little common area. Now this group leaves their cubicles, wastes a little time, laughs, talks, and enjoys food together. Sometimes it takes an Italian to remind us that taking a lunch break with others at work is just as important as being productive.
So while Italy continues to drain itself of its best asset, the rest of the world benefits as young Italians take their culture abroad and teach others to take a break, enjoy life and eat good food!
I hope you like the film. Let me know what you think.
Con amore,
Justine
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