Nobody can fly

see also

Trailer

original title:

Nessuno può volare

cast:

Simonetta Agnello Hornby, George Hornby, Simona Anedda, Manuela Migliaccio, Daniele Regolo, Filippo Tenaglia, Roberto Valori, Marzia Faietti, Antonio Organtini, Marylinda Pacenti, Lucia Ricciardi, Marika Russo

cinematography:

editing:

country:

Italy

year:

2017

film run:

103'

format:

colour

status:

Ready (02/07/2017)

The journey of Simonetta Agnello Hornby and her son George starts in Rome at the Foro Italico, with its colossal statues of athletes portraying beauty, strength, virility, ability and perfection corresponding to the Latin concept “ mens sana in corpora sano”, which was so glorified by fascism.
Yet it is in Rome that the Paralympics were born. In the Mosaic swimming pool at the Foro complex, Simonetta and George meet swimmer Roberto Valori, a participant of the 1981 paralympic games, born without legs and an arm. He was paralympic champion in Barcelona in 1992 and is currently the president of FINP ( Italian Federation of Paralympic Swimming).
The following visit is to Sant’Alessio Centre, a former institute which used to host both poor and blind children. They then arrive at Ara Pacis where they experience a tactile-sensory tour which allows blind people to enjoy the art of the location. The characters are accompanied to these locations by Filippo Tenaglia, an IT programmer keen on sport who lost his sight because of an illness.
At the hotel where they stay, the mother and the son meet Simona Anedda, a tireless traveler affected by multiple sclerosis. Despite being affected by this condition and not being able to walk anymore, she hasn’t lost the willingness to live and explore the world.
The second stop on this journey is Florence: the first visit is to the Foundling wheel at the "Hospital of Innocenti" where thousands of unwanted babies were abandoned over the span of 4 centuries.
It is followed by the visit to the Uffizi Gallery, where George meets his friend Manuela Migliaccio, a beautiful girl who lost ability in her legs as the result of an accident.
Marylinda Pacenti is their tour guide at the Gallery of Statues and Paintings, where they analyze the standards of beauty and discuss the ideas of harmony, imperfection and the non-finished which becomes a masterpiece. They share their opinions on how people with disabilities were seen in the past and how they were treated at the Court of the Medici.
In the gallery they admire The portrait of Federico da Montefeltro by Piero della Francesca, La Primavera and the Birth of Venus by Botticelli, as well as the Annunciation and The Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo.
Simonetta also goes to the Gabinetto dei Disegni which holds drafts of works by many important artists, including studies on proportions, the body and human anatomy. More particularly their attention is drawn to the “ Study of a cripple” realized by Vannini and the “Heads of an old man and a youth” by Leonardo da Vinci.
At the Palatine Gallery the mother and the son discover the representation of disability in art while admiring the “ Ritratto di nano con mazza ferrata” (Portrait of a dwarf with an iron club and a dog) (realized by an anonymous Florentine painter in the first half of XVII century) and a wandering storyteller (The Netherlands, XVII century). The Florentine journey ends in the Boboli Gardens, where Valerio Cioli’s Bacchino Fountain, which depicts the obese dwarf Morgante, can be found.

The journey continues north, leading to Liguria, where a sailboat in the waters of La Spezia acts as the meeting point with Daniele Regolo, a sailor and successful entrepreneur deaf from his birth, committed to help the disabled find a job suitable to their aptitudes.

The documentary ends at Acqui Terme with an emblematic image: George , despite his condition which obliges him to see life from a wheelchair, looks at the world from above for the first time, a surprise also for Simonetta.