TITLE: Love in the time of train traveling

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, in the midst of this chaos of features, expressions, faces that come and go, my interest go spontaneously to the couples. They are always there somewhere, hiding or just relaxing on a bench. Impossible not to photograph those "couples" in love, anxious for the separation, teasing each other or just being in awe. I wanted to grasp all the ballet of poses, mimics, that people in love consciously or unconsciously show off. The couples that I photographed are full of penetrating and innocent gazes, like the black and white cinema of neorealism. After all, I'm a movie fan...and I wanted the train station to be my set and my characters to be like movie actors.
All these people were witnesses of a world that did not know the internet, smartphones, privacy laws and social distancing. Maybe through their eyes we can grasp what has changed in us over the last 30 years?

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.