(2004 Italy, by Carmelo Bonvissuto and Maurizio Radice, color, 30 mins)

Summer 2003: the multinational Trussardi wants to close “Le Trottoir”, the last bohemienne place in Milan. Fights against the closure begin and the manager of the café chains himself. 

The cafè’s are an expression of modern democracy. They were born together with the Enlightement and they became immediately the crucial points of modern cities, the places where artists, middle-class men and intellectuals could meet and discuss freely.

This tradition was still present and vivid in Italy during the period of “dolce vita”. But the changes of the last decades have distressed the most well-established habits and not only in Italy. In Milan all the place of “Brera” – the so–called area of the artists – have been raised from few financial big companies that have turned them into tourist attraction.

The story documented with our work “Happy hours” is only the last of thes actions and it represents the contradiction of a process that can bring to a cancellation of our historical memory.