For over fifty years the amateur theatre group of Monticchiello, a tiny hilltop village in Tuscany, has staged original productions inspired by the lives of the villagers themselves.

The tradition began after WWII as the townsfolk sought to engage creatively with the collective trauma of the conflict; nowadays the focus has become the ongoing financial crisis. This elegiac film captures the theatre at a time of flux as funding has become scarce and the original players, now elderly consider the future of the ‘town that played itself’.

This screening is part of the IFI Documentary Festival 2017, running from September 27th to October 1st. Find out more about the festival here. 

Notes by David O’Mahony.