The American film director Spike Lee has provoked a furious row in Italy with his latest film, Miracle at Sant’Anna, which centres on the role of black soldiers in liberating Italy and includes a story line about 1944 massacre in the Tuscan town of Sant’Anna di Stazzema. By depicting the Partisans, the Italian resistance which fought against the Nazis and fascists in the last two years of the Second World War, as partially to blame for one of the worst massacres of the war, he has put a large American boot into an issue which, though 60 years old, is for many Italians still a matter of acute sensitivity. Surviving members of Italy’s Second World War resistance movement have taken issue with Spike Lee’s depiction of history in Miracle at St. Anna. Continue reading ‘Spike Lee’s film “Miracle at St. Anna” draws fire.’
Hamish Moore’s final article for 2008
So, here we are on the last night. It feels strangely ghost like. The Duomo Bells have given me the time but the town is so quiet.
Marino is closed with the flu, Ricardo is on a day off, The Altana is shut for holidays and there really is no one about and it’s a bit grey and damp. Continue reading ‘Hamish Moore’s final article for 2008′
England to Barga in a £100 car ?
A quick check through the archives will show quite graphically (MG’s - vintage - vintage2 )that we are accustomed here in Barga to the arrival of all sorts of cars from modern Ferrari’s down to veteran and vintage cars from the last century but this morning on the Fosso nobody was really prepared for the arrival of two cars that had made the journey from the UK. Continue reading ‘England to Barga in a £100 car ?’
Puppets and high wire - Modifiche al Silenzio
For the whole of September there has been a small group of people moving about Barga Vecchia at strange hours of the day. None of them ever carried cameras or looked like the usual tourists during the summer season. If people tried eavesdropping on their conversation they would have heard a mixture of English, Italian and French being used by the group as they chopped and changed from language to language with apparent ease but probably the most disturbing aspect of this group was the fact that for a lot of the time there seemed to be a small dwarf in their midst. Continue reading ‘Puppets and high wire - Modifiche al Silenzio’
Windy conditions with plastic plates and beakers flying through the air but nobody seemed to care as the annual Porchetta - Pig Roast got underway in Barga this morning. More than 80 friends and family gathered round the tables set out in a field with the delicious aroma of roast mingling with the wood smoke as the chef who had been working since 5 am set out a 60 kilo pig on the carving table and the festa was in full swing. Continue reading ‘Porchetta - Pig Roast party’
In the middle of the night
In the middle
Of the window
Stunned still
Its glare floods
The furrows
Of the pillow
Turn
There are dreams to reap
For the long winter ahead
help keep barganews online
