La strada nel bosco

The second film that De Bernardi made in 2001, La strada nel bosco, is made up of three separate love stories (or ‘alleged’ love stories). Each story follows three characters, usually outside the home, on their way somewhere. It is a film about the number three and about encounters. These encounters are set in different locations in Italy from which they also derive different meanings: Rome, Naples, Turin, but also the province of Campania or even Thailand (so the film is also a journey through Italy and beyond). All these stories are accompanied by popular songs that are to be found somewhere in the collective Italian memory: Primo amore, Maria Laò, Carmela (the title of the film is also taken from a song). The largest part of the film is set in the shadows of the night.De Bernardi: ‘As my film confronts fiction and documentary with each other, it is not the intention that the story itself be revealed. It refers to people and places, yet we cannot say exactly what happens: everyone has to find out for themselves a game of wait and see.’