Chiara Ligi, Mauro Macella / Italy, Louxembourg / 22’ / 2022

Remixing Industrial Pasts is a film-collage that explores the evolution of a landscape, that of Minett, the heart of Luxembourg’s steel industry, and investigates the relationship between territory, memory and transformation, raising questions about identity and its representations.
Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the discovery of iron ore deposits transforms southern Luxembourg from agricultural land to the epicenter of European industrialization. Landscapes change, cities expand, thousands of people migrate from other countries, but the boom also brings invisible hierarchies and cultural tensions. And when crisis hits industry in the 1970s and 1980s, that seemingly solid universe implodes, leaving behind industrial ruins, social conflicts and scars on the land. The film builds a mosaic in which industry, people, and landscape are woven into a visual and aural palimpsest, digging into the margins of history to bring out neglected themes and questioning the dominant representation of regional identity

Directed by Chiara Ligi, Mauro Macella
Written by Chiara Ligi, Mauro Macella
Produced by Micol Riva, Chiara Ligi
Editing by Mauro Macella
Music and Sound design Max Viale
Archive researcher Esther Chionetti, Alessia Fallica, Chiara Ligi
Editing assistant Alessia Fallica
Drone operator Lars Schoenfelder