A Journey to a Better Life
In 1924, film director Angelo Drovetti embarked on epic 8,000 nautical mile voyage. The result is regarded as the most comprehensive film ever made of a migrant voyage.
The band Zumpa provides an accompanying suite of Italian folk music that will transport you to forgotten Italian fishing villages, moonlit olive groves and a hard life under a hot sun where peasants play music to celebrate life with a fierce sense of humour. They provide the sounds and energy of folk, gypsy and Italian world music woven together for a truly spaghetti and meatballs experience.
SS Regina d' Italia (Queen of Italy) - Lloyd Sabaudo Lines
About the Performance
The film is silent and in black and white. It has Italian intertitles with English translations.
The film is 60 minutes in duration. The film can be presented in 2 parts with an intermission of 20 minutes or as a continous event.
The musicians are positioned in front of the film screen and to one side and perform live Italian folk tunes and songs while the film is showing.
Dall'Italia All'Australia (From Italy to Australia), is regarded by many as the most comprehensive film ever made of a migrant voyage. In 1924, the Italian film director Angelo Drovetti embarked on an epic 8,000-nautical-mile voyage with his movie camera aboard the Regina D'Italia.
Melbourne Journalist and author Tony De Bolfo stumbled onto the existence of Dall’Italia All’Australia through his research for a book entitled In Search of Kings (Harper CollinsPublishers) - dealing with what became of 108 passengers including his grandfather Silvio De Bolfo and his brothers Francesco and Igino - who disembarked the steamship Re d’Italia (King of Italy) in Melbourne in November 1927. Tony discovered the existence of Dall’Italia All’Australia after scouring a website for the Bologna Silent Film Festival where the film was screened in 2003.
Since that time the (silent) film has been screened all over Australia with a live musical score by I Viaggiatori with the last performance in 2017.
The film had a revival in Brisbane in May 2022 with live music by Zumpa which included David De Santi from I Viaggiatori.
During Tony De Bolfo's research he discovered the Australian Regina d'Italia disembarkee passenger lists from the 1924 journey. These are available in I Viaggiatori website and make interesting reading for anyone with Italian heritage in Australia. The list of Brisbane passengers that disembarked is below.
The film includes footage of Fremantle, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The Brisbane footage, prior to the Story Bridge, includes the river, the city and Howard's Wharves.
