La Strada di Levi

An impressive eyewitness account of a journey through Eastern Europe in both 1945 and 2005. Italian writer Primo Levi recorded the first trip, which took place after his liberation from Auschwitz. His journey home to Turin took him more than eight months and brought him to the Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Romania and Hungary. He later described his wanderings in The Truce, a book that became the basis of the 1997 film of the same name starring John Turturro as Levi. In this documentary essay, a voice-over reads passages from Levi's book while the filmmakers follow the path of his journey 60 years later. Differences between text and film provide a striking picture of the recent events in Eastern Europe. In 2005, the working heroes of yore are poor retirees who nobody really cares about anymore. Then again, other passages reveal that some things never change, like the ones in which Levi describes the people and the countryside. Primo Levi's Journey is a melancholic, touching and sometimes hilarious history lesson that does justice to Levi's work and spirit. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)