Synopsis An Italian steelworks is sold to Chinese industrialists who wish to transport it, and all its parts, in particular its furnace, back to China. Vincenzo Buonavolontà, the factory’s maintenance manager, believes he’s detected an important flaw. Convinced of the professional necessity to repair the damage, and motivated by unshakeable moral honesty, Vincenzo undertakes a journey through modern China, giving an acute meaning to the human dimension of his ethical quest, like a modern-day Don Quixote. During his journey, thrown into a foreign world that is sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, he encounters his Sancho Panza in the shape of a young Chinese woman, a guide at times enlightened, at times lost, who accompanies him to the heart of this country and its contradictions, communist and capitalist, rich and poor, avant-garde and reactionary. During this road movie in today’s China, Vincenzo and Liu Hua will make this old adage theirs: “the fool travels his whole life; the wise person knows the importance of his least footstep.” Festival selections |