Volevo Solo Vivere (I Only Wanted to Live)

Volevo Solo Vivere offers a unique window into the Italian Jewish experience of the Shoah (Holocaust). This outstanding documentary follows nine Italian citizens who endured Mussolini and the Italian racial laws of 1938, then survived deportation and internment in the Auschwitz death camps. Masterfully directed by veteran helmer Mimmo Calopresti and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Volevo Solo Vivere screened to critical acclaim in the Cannes and Jerusalem Film Festivals and was nominated for Italy’s Donatello Award. It features searing testimonies, carefully sifted by Calopresti, from the archives of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. Most compelling is the story of Liliana Segre of Milan, whose dignity and articulation of her experience are quite remarkable. At the end of the war, Segre watched in horror and disbelief as some of the Nazis at Auschwitz shed their uniforms and tried to blend in with the prisoners. For a brief moment, Segre had the opportunity to grab a pistol and shoot a former camp guard, but her decision to maintain her own moral code triumphed over her desire for revenge. Upon liberation, dried apricots were one of the first foods that Segre ate, and whose taste she still associates with freedom. Her story is a gift—like those apricots—bursting with flavor and full of an irrepressible will to live.

From 2008 Festival: Director, Italy Mimmo Calopresti began his career in Italy directing socially conscious documentary films. In 1994 his directing career was launched with the release of La Seconda Volta (The Second Time), produced by Sacher Film, starring Nanni Moretti and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. He then directed La Parola Amore Esiste (The Word Love Exists) in 1998, which won the award for Best Original Story from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists; then Preferisco Il Rumore Del Mare (I Prefer the Sound of the Sea) in 1999 and La Felicità Non Costa Niente (Happiness Costs Nothing) in 2002. He made the documentary film Volevo solo Vivere (“I Only Wanted to Live”) and has just finished shooting his latest feature film, a comedy called L’Abbuffata.