TITLE: "It is dangerous to lean out": portrait of a long gone Italy

Just graduated from a photography school in Brussels, lover of Italy and Italian cinema, I decided to discover the beautiful country in a personal way, almost as if it were someone to know. We are in August 1992.
So I venture on the first train to Florence and then to Rome. I go even further south, towards Naples, Reggio Calabria and finally Sicily. And during the long hours of travel and waiting on the platforms, I begin to photograph the faces I meet, from station to station, from carriage to carriage.
And in the midst of this chaos of features, expressions, faces that come and go, I start my casting. After all, I'm a movie fan...and I want my characters to be like movie actors. I want them to be beautiful even when they are ugly. Because I “love” my actors in my imaginary film.
The people photographed don't look at the lens to earn a "like" on social media but dare to pose "bare" with all their humanity in front of the photographer. In fact, they enter into a sort of empathetic "communion" with the young foreigner they did not know until a few minutes before.

As the title suggests, 30 years ago you could open the windows on trains. Today this simple action is no longer possible. Those photographs portray an Italy that, unfortunately, is no longer there and probably also a world that no longer exists.

Only 30 years have passed… but it seems like a lot more.

So what has changed in us over the past 30 years?
Because something has changed, it is undeniable…but what and why?
We could perhaps find the answer in the eyes of these travelers and these railway workers, witnesses of a world that did not know the internet, smartphones, privacy

AUTHOR: NICOLAS FRANIK (Italy)

After a photography school in Brussels in the early '90's I moved to Rome-Italy to graduate in the National Film School as a Cinematographer. Since then I worked for several years in the movie industry before I got more and more involved with TV productions.
I worked as a Director Of Photography, Cameraman for Italian and foreign TV productions and it broadened into documentaries, magazines, reportages, corporate films and news.

As for Today I mainly work as a Filmmaker, performing actively at all stages of the filmmaking process…from the conception up to the (final) editing.