The film shows us how it will be like to live in a Europe without passports or customs, like the United States of America. Shot in 1951, it hypothesizes a future that for us is already history: in 2001, a TV presenter announces the transmission of a comedy of fifty years before, when traveling from one European country to another was a risky and complex undertaking. A man (Peppino De Filippo) and a woman (Margit Seeber) run from one office to another to get a passport and a marriage license. Eventually, after further and meticulous checks at the border post, the two decide to change project: they go to live on a tree, hoping that one day, on the model of the United States of America, the United States of Europe will be created.

Genre
Fiction Film

Credits
Production Country: Italy
Film Production Company: Unknown
Commissioning Institution: Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA)
Director: Giacinto Mondaini
Producer: Unknown
Script: Unknown
Cinematography: Unknown
Film Editing: Unknown
Music: Unknown
Commentator: Unknown

Technical Information
Original Film Format: 35 mm
Duration: 13 minutes
Colour: Black & White

United States of Europe, European Borders, European Bureaucracy

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Italian

Video

Cineteca Nazionale, Rome

The film was digitised from the copy located at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale, Rome. Digital reproduction of the film is available online at: " target="_blank">Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale

Fritsche, Maria: The American Marshall Plan Film Campaign and the Europeans. A Captivated Audience?, London : Bloomsbury 2018.

Fritsche, Maria: Das Schiff und der Strom – Subtiles Werben für Europa in den Marshallplan-Filmen, in: Clemens, Gabriele (ed.) : Werben für Europa. Die mediale Konstruktion europäischer Identität durch Europafilme, Paderborn : Schöningh 2016, pp. 471-488.

Bruch, Anne; Clemens, Gabriele ; Goergen, Jeanpaul & Tode, Thomas: « Cooperation means prosperity » – Das Werben für die Integration Europas in den Marshallplan-Filmen, in: Clemens, Gabriele (ed.): Werben für Europa. Die mediale Konstruktion europäischer Identität durch Europafilme, Paderborn: Schöningh 2016, pp. 191-226.