Riccardo Milani is an acclaimed film director and screenwriter. His recent works include Come un gatto in tangenziale (2021), Un mondo a parte (2024) and La vita va così (2025).

Mr Milani, you have a lifelong and deeply rooted connection with villages and small towns. How have you seen these places change over time, and how can safeguarding their identity be reconciled with the need for development and with challenges such as depopulation?

I have known these places for a long time; in a way, I grew up here. I have spent nearly sixty years of my life engaging with these communities, people and places, and I have watched them change only gradually. The changes have not been excessive or dramatic, but have mainly affected habits and population figures, because the real issue facing these areas is depopulation. It is a constant across many of our country’s small towns: the decline in residents is the most striking change I have witnessed. I have seen villages that had 1,500 inhabitants in the 1980s fall to just 85 or 100 today. This sometimes drastic decline is their true transformation. These places are almost always set within magnificent landscapes, because the beauty of the land is one of Italy’s defining features. Those of us from larger cities who know these places only slightly are often drawn to villages by the desire for nature to be itself again. We tend to idealise life there, but we experience it over a weekend: we arrive, enjoy the surroundings and feel as if we are in ‘a world apart’. Living there all year round is another matter, as residents know very well. Two identities therefore have to coexist. Their environmental, cultural and historical character can attract tourism and create employment, giving these villages a present and a future. Yet a place must preserve its authenticity. Excessive tourism can bring harmful consequences, such as uncontrolled building and hotel development that suddenly changes its face. Finding the balance is extremely difficult. The open question is what kind of development can be genuinely realistic, sustainable and effective for these small villages—cradles that carefully preserve cultural, environmental and community values.

Small communities are often perceived from the outside as closed worlds, wary of newcomers. How do you approach this theme in your work, and what role can media attention—or integration with new communities—play in bringing fresh life to villages at risk of disappearing?

It happens often. I set many of my films in small communities, local worlds that can be somewhat closed, though I do not mean that negatively: a degree of isolation can also help preserve things. The essential point, however, is that a community has enormous potential, and we must enable the village to renew itself, for children to be born and able to remain so that the village survives. Take Opi, where we filmed Un mondo a parte. Its school had closed five years earlier. I visited the building, and the film was born there: classrooms without children, who had been forced to travel to more distant towns in the name of logistical cost efficiency. I chose Opi because it embodied a situation found throughout Italy, where schools and small communities are constantly at risk of closure. Since the film was released in March 2024, nine children have been born in Opi in a year and a half. Three families have moved there; the pharmacy and a grocery shop have reopened. There are signs of recovery. People are already considering where those nine children will attend school and whether to reopen the one that closed. Of course, it was only a film—a moment of media attention, a light turned on this community. But that light provided momentum: Opi now hosts a photographic exhibition about the film, and buses bring visitors to its locations. A film cannot revive a village on its own; believing that would be unrealistic and wrong. Yet when the spotlight comes on and we look beyond our daily lives, we can discover something compelling. People found something inspiring and beautiful in Opi and recognised it as part of their national heritage. Un mondo a parte also tells of a school returning to life through a new demographic mix. In the film, as in many real mountain areas, children from different backgrounds—from those fleeing war to the children of families who immigrated in the 1990s and are now integrated into the local economy—provide the numbers a school needs to survive. This demographic change has been taking place for years, regardless of political interpretations: it is about keeping essential services sustainable. Without these new families, many schools would lack the minimum enrolment required to stay open. That fact deserves serious reflection. In these towns, people with different histories and ideas share the same fate. When they must solve problems essential to the village, their differences give way to the common good. It is a powerful model of social cohesion from which large cities could also learn.  “Un mondo a parte” racconta anche di una scuola che torna a vivere grazie a una nuova composizione demografica. Nel film, come nella realtà di molte zone montuose, la presenza di bambini di diverse origini – da chi scappa da zone di guerra a chi appartiene a famiglie immigrate negli anni ’90 e ormai integrate nel tessuto lavorativo locale – è ciò che permette ai numeri della scuola di reggere. È una trasformazione demografica che avviene concretamente da tempo, indipendentemente dalle letture politiche: è una questione di sostenibilità dei servizi. Senza questi nuovi nuclei familiari, molte scuole non avrebbero i numeri minimi per restare aperte. È un dato di fatto che merita una riflessione profonda. In questi centri, persone con storie e idee diverse si ritrovano a condividere lo stesso destino e, quando si tratta di risolvere problemi vitali per il paese, le distanze passano in secondo piano rispetto al bene comune. È un modello di coesione sociale molto forte, da cui anche le grandi città potrebbero trarre insegnamento.

Un mondo a parte seems to express a sense of collective responsibility, visible both in major actions and in the everyday choices of those who decide not to leave. In this context, how do you understand the Italian concept of restanza—remaining in one’s homeland? Is it an act of solitary heroism, or rather the fundamental right to imagine a future in the place where one was born, while the world races elsewhere?

I think of the young man in the film, a farmer barely in his twenties who wants to cultivate the land and pursues the seemingly absurd dream of starting a business in a place that appears to have neither present nor future. He succeeds in the film, and that is what happened in real life: Duilio built his enterprise with determination because he believed in the land, in the opportunity and in reviving an activity historically connected with that area. He made it. His experience confirms the idea of restanza: staying can still be a viable path. It is not merely an option but also a right—the right of someone born in a place to have what they need around them in order to remain. Leaving is not always the only solution. Young people often abandon these areas to find work elsewhere, perhaps abroad, enriching other countries with their labour while being unable to invest anything in their places of origin. We know this story well: Italians were migrants long before the present day. We founded cities and helped nations grow, bringing our skills, ingenuity and hard work into the world. Today, however, staying is possible. It is both possible and desirable. Restanza should be part of the natural order: being able to remain where you were born, without being driven away or having your destiny decided in advance. That is precisely what it means—not accepting habit, not resigning yourself to a predetermined fate, but changing its course to find your own path. It is achievable and is already happening. An Italy active in its villages and small towns is demonstrating that a path exists, both culturally and economically. We must be realistic: this process cannot survive on ideals alone. Without practical support and an economic return, these choices are destined to fail. That is why courage is needed. Perhaps, ultimately, Un mondo a parte is a film about courage.