NON MI BASTA MAI

Pietro, Ebe, Pasquale, Vincenzo, and Gianni are five people who are very different from each other. They have strong individual traits and are intensely committed to their work, but not only this. Each of them dedicates a good part of his free time to socially useful activities. Pietro is a social director for children. Ebe is a union activist. Pasquale and Vincenzo are member of private organizations that foster cooperation with the third world. Gianni is engaged in projects for the defense of the environment. What they have in common is that the live or have lived in Turin. Other than that, they do not seem to have much in common. Yet, twenty years before, these five people shared in one of the most important and contradictory pages of Italian post-war history. In fall, 1980, after 35 dramatic days of strikes, the state of conflict ended between FIAT, the most noteworthy Italian company, and the workers' movement. After ten years of struggle that began with the hot fall of 1969 the strongest and feistiest European working class was defeated by the refined, repressive strategy of FIAT and by their own internal divisions. They were also defeated by a general transformation in world capitalism whose impetus had been intuited by few at the time - the end of Fordism and the beginning of globalization. The video passes from the present to the past, and then to the future of the five characters. It tries to tell the story of those years of transformation. It also tries to investigate about the questions that the protagonists are raising with their own lives. Is every hypothesis for a collective transformation of society really finished? In what way can a person still «change» in a world that tends more and more towards standardization? What sense does "giving and example" have? The film uses never-before-screened film clips form the 1980 struggles and alternates these with 16mm shots taken this year. In this way, the film tries to use images and sounds in order to recount several possible trails that are perhaps being blazed in grassroots society.

"It's Never Enough for Me grew out of my encounters with the protagonists, and took life from them. There are a close up scenes from the lives of our protagonists with all their contradictions, fears, anxieties, and projects. In the background, there are ten years of workers' struggles, the dramatic crisis of the 35 days, and the end of industrial development in a city, Turin, that is going through a profound transformation. We have worked thinking of a film story that would go in the opposite direction of a television investigation. We have tried, with images and sounds, to reflect on what chances we have for the future" (Guido Chiesa, Daniele Vicari).