The Austrian director will present his film "Ride back to freedom" to the public: riding his Vespa in the summer of 2020, he travelled across Italy to discover how the meaning of freedom has changed in the times of the pandemic.

The event is organised by the Cineclub Arsenale in collaboration with the Piaggio Foundation and Motorteam.

An evening "on the road" in search of freedom. On Wednesday 5 July (9.30 pm) at the Parco delle Concette in Pisa, Austrian director Hermann Weiskopf will present his film Ride back to freedom to the public. 

What does freedom mean when the whole world is trapped by an unprecedented pandemic? Riding his beloved Vespa just after the first lockdown by COVID-19, filmmaker Hermann Weiskopf rode almost 5,000 kilometres from the north to the south of Italy on his Vespa from 15 June 2020, when the border between Austria and Italy finally reopened for the first time after the lockdown caused by the Coronavirus, in a journey that offers a moving snapshot of the pandemic in Italy.

The interviewees are people encountered by chance along the way, of all ages and backgrounds, who spontaneously agreed to share their experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, of the lock-down and their very personal vision of freedom. In their stories, sometimes tragic, sometimes joyful or philosophical, but always full of important food for thought, they talk about how freedom is experienced after the first phase of the pandemic.

The musical score, composed entirely by different artists for the film, emotionally enhances many points of the film.