Once upon a time there was a garden, a refuge, a safe haven - 'The Garden of the Finzi Continis'. It came to life in Giorgio Bassani's 1962 semi-autobiographical novel recounting an unfulfilled love story between two young Jews in Ferrara, while fascism was raging in Italy in the late 1930's. In 1972, Vittorio De Sica's film adaptation of the book won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Since then, the fictional space of the garden became so tangible that people from all over the world come to Ferrara to look for it. Fifty years after winning the Oscar, reality and fiction come together once more, as we walk through an imaginary garden and bring to life the book, its author, its main protagonists, history, love, friendships and betrayals.
Rä di Martino
Director

Dominique Sanda
Self

Giorgio Bassani
Self (archive footage)

Vittorio De Sica
Self (archive footage)

Alessandro D'Alatri
Self

Lino Capolicchio
Self

Helmut Berger
Self (archive footage)

Fabio Testi
Self (archive footage)

Manuel De Sica
Self (archive footage)
I Am Heath Ledger74%
For the Love of Spock73%
Audrey71%
John Candy: I Like Me78%
Seduced and Abandoned62%
The Making of Star Wars70%
Shoah82%
Obi-Wan Kenobi: A Jedi's Return67%
The Class of ‘9271%
Varda par Agnès79%
Alone in the Wilderness79%
Naqoyqatsi61%
Looking for Richard68%
Hitchcock/Truffaut72%
Elstree 197661%
Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition86%
Human84%
Bambi, l'histoire d'une vie dans les bois64%
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert82%