River gold
Italy after WWII was a very poor country, where one had to invent work. In the area of Novara, many improvised as gold diggers and scoured the Ticino River for traces of the precious ore. But in Italy, as is known, there are no nuggets; at best one might find a few specks of little value.
Acquadoro is the story of this precarious occupation, which was soon abandoned. With the economic boom, searching for gold was no longer profitable and so the diggers found other work and life along the Ticino was never the same. The same fate befell all who lived along this river: the poachers who dragged their nets along the river and never encountered the authorities, the magicians, the charlatans, and the itinerant musicians. Or Cico Trombeta, the travelling who enchanted housewives with the invention of the century: the pressure cooker. The voice of Lucilla Giagnoni and the music of Marco Tamagni retraced the history of the Ticino, its people and their crafts, all swept away by the flood of modern life.
