Young people tell their stories

Italy goodbye, I will not return

Edited by Barbara Pavarotti in collaboration with Marinella Mazzanti

Narration by Pietro Luigi Biagioni

Original music by Massimo Priviero

The documentary video is the result of 30 interviews with as many young Italians who have left to move abroad in search of work in recent years.

To locate young emigrants on three continents, the Paolo Cresci Foundation in 2017 contacted 70 Facebook Groups of Italians around the world, appealing to about 350,000 people.

The interviews, conducted in Barcelona, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Munich, New York and Tallinn, offer insight into a phenomenon that even today is taking on significant numbers: in the eleven years 2011-2021 according to Istat data, 451,585 young Italians aged 18-34 transferred their residence abroad, while 134,543 from abroad transferred it to Italy. Overall, 317,042 young people left Italy (migration balance).

Different from those of the last century and the previous one, who left with a cardboard suitcase and with the heartbreak of detachment and grief for the lost land in their hearts, in the age of globalization and easy travel, these young people leave aware of themselves and their abilities that they could not apply in Italy. Italy, an aged and pessimistic country, no longer seems a place for young people.