Once upon a time there was a garden, a refuge, a safe haven - 'The Garden of the Finzi Continis'. It came to life in Giorgio Bassani's 1962 semi-autobiographical novel recounting an unfulfilled love story between two young Jews in Ferrara, while fascism was raging in Italy in the late 1930's. In 1972, Vittorio De Sica's film adaptation of the book won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Since then, the fictional space of the garden became so tangible that people from all over the world come to Ferrara to look for it. Fifty years after winning the Oscar, reality and fiction come together once more, as we walk through an imaginary garden and bring to life the book, its author, its main protagonists, history, love, friendships and betrayals.

Au fil des pages du romanLe jardin des Finzi-Contini, que Vittorio De Sica a adapté au cinéma, un voyage empreint de nostalgie à Ferrare, entre réalité et fiction, sur les traces de son auteur, l’écrivain italien Giorgio Bassani.

Die Gärten der Finzi-Contini werden in Giorgio Bassanis gleichnamigem Bestseller über das faschistische Italien und die Auslöschung einer jüdischen Familie zum Refugium der Protagonisten. Immer wieder suchen auch heute noch Touristen in der Stadt Ferrara, wo die Erzählung spielt, nach diesen Gärten – die es in Wirklichkeit nie gab.