The Suffering Town (1949)
La città dolente [ITA]

1947. Following the signature of the Paris Peace Treaties, the town of Pola is annexed to Yugoslavia. A young Italian couple with a baby is torn by the husband’s desire to remain in communist-led Yugoslavia amid the massive Italian emigration from the town. The wife decides to leave him behind, as a sacrifice that she takes with great difficulty in order to provide her child with a dignified life.

The film did not receive major festival visibility at the time when it was made, but it acquired significant attention in contemporary times, and became referential. Its festival rediscovery started in 1989 at the 7^th Festival internazionale cinema giovani’s retrospective “Neorealism in 50 films” [ITA] in Torino. This was followed by the screening at the Il Cinema ritrovato festival organized by the Cineteca di Bologna (2006), within the section “The mise-en-scène of the Cold War” (2006). Its copy was restored in 2008, which enabled for a better screening quality and more screening opportunities. Following the restauration, it was shown at within the retrospective "Questi fantasmi: Cinema italiano ritrovato" [ITA] at the Venice Film Festival (2008), as well as various film festivals in the post-Yugoslav space, such as Festival nitratnog filma [SRP] [Festival of nitrate film] in Belgrade (2016) and the Pula Film Festival in 2021. Among the non-festival screenings, it was shown within the traveling conference “Oriente / Occidente - la frontiera nel cinema e nella storia 1945-1954-2025” [ITA] in Palazzo del cinema, in Gorizia (May, 2022).

The film was praised for “nobility” and good cinematography, as well as for including the segments of the newsreel “Pola, addio” which shows actuality footage of the massive Italian departure from Pola (see for instance “Agitatrice senza fiammiferi” [ITA], “Stampa Sera”, April 8, 1949, p. 2). The Yugoslav film press described it as an anti-Yugoslav propaganda, as evidenced by in the press clipping available in the Library of the Yugoslav Film Archives [SRP]. For a more detailed analysis see the article “The Cinematic Battle for the Adriatic: Film Festivals and the Trieste Crisis”, and, specifically, pages 58-59 ("Cinergie - Il cinema e le altre arti", N. 22 University of Bologna, 2022, pp. 55-68).

Mario Bonnard (1889-1965) was an Italian film director, scriptwriter, producer and actor, born in Rome. He worked as an actor during the period of silent film, after which he was devoted to film directing and scriptwriting, although he still acted in some of his own films. He produced two feature films, directed about 60 short and feature films, and wrote script for more than 20 films, some of them produced in France and in Germany.