On October 9th, 2025, the first lesson dedicated to the project “Le Case di Micòl” took place, led by Professor Michele Ronchi Stefanati. During the class, the project was introduced through a multimedia presentation and through several explanations and clarifications provided by the professor.
Le Case di Micòl is a project involving various European institutions, including film schools in several cities such as Brussels, Prague, and Warsaw, as well as Ferrara. These schools are responsible for producing short films about female figures who, like Micòl Finzi-Contini in Giorgio Bassani’s novel The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, were forced to leave their homes as a result of persecution by Fascist and Nazi regimes. The short films, addressing themes linked to racial laws, discrimination, and the loss of beloved places and people, will later be screened at the Blow-Up Academy in Ferrara, where they will be discussed by students from the participating schools, including the Luigi Einaudi Upper Secondary School of Ferrara.
Our goal as students is precisely to become “bearers of active remembrance” or “alfieri della memoria”: people capable of remembering and continuously recognizing today all victims of discrimination and the many “Micòls” across the world — young women persecuted, deported, and brutally deprived of their lives solely because they belonged to an ethnic group different from the dominant one or to a faith different from that practiced by the majority. We must never forget them, keeping their memory alive forever.
As mentioned, the project’s name is inspired by Giorgio Bassani’s 1962 novel The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, from which Vittorio De Sica later made the film adaptation. During the lesson, Professor Ronchi Stefanati explained the plot of both works, recounting the story of the Finzi-Continis, a Ferrara Jewish upper-middle-class family made up of Ermanno and Olga and their children, Alberto and Micòl. In both the novel and the film, the family lives in a huge house surrounded by a garden where tennis tournaments were held (the small wall and gate of this house, located in Via degli Angeli — today Corso Ercole I d’Este — would later become iconic). The protagonist — Giorgio in the film — meets Micòl and falls deeply in love with her, but he never finds the courage to express his feelings.
In 1938, the racial laws are issued, complicating the course of the story: Jewish citizens lose all their rights, and Micòl moves to Venice to complete her studies and to escape the emotions she felt for the protagonist.
When Micòl returns, the protagonist finally confesses his feelings, but he is rejected. The girl becomes cold and distant and asks him not to see her or her family again. The novel ends with a time jump that reveals to the reader the fate of the characters.
Nicole Borsetti
Classe 5B
IIS Luigi Einaudi
Ferrara