• Director(s):

    SCHIRMAN (DANIELLE)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE FRANCE, LOBSTER FILMS

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2008

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French, Portuguese

  • Rights:

    NON-THEATRICAL, TV, VOD, DVD, INTERNET

For Italians, the 1957 Fiat Nuova 500 represents the automobile in its infancy. For the rest of the world, this mighty little car is the embodiment of Italy.

Very few vehicles combine both technology and affection in their bodywork. Yet, la bambina, a small masterpiece of economy and simplification, is a veritable industrial miracle.

The tiny means of transport that is the 500 takes us on a real journey - starting with the unique industry of Fiat, a veritable state within Italy, then on through the heart of the Italian post-war decade. We'll see that it can be very complicated to establish an economic chain with widespread distribution, and that this feat of rationalisation is due to one man, the engineer Dante Giacosa. Giacosa, a godsend for Fiat for forty years, was the father of the 500 and many other models.
Before reaching its destination, our filmed excursion will cross the frenetic Italian "miracolo", travel through the inroads of a nation in change, between the rural and the industrial, and will visit the crossroads of the 50s and the 60s, with their continual flow of an adolescent consumer society.

2009 : Selected at FIFA - International Festival of Films on Art (Montréal, Canada).