Rob Munday
Sometimes all a child wants is a parent’s love, and they’ll go to extreme lengths to get it. In Enea Colombi’s mysterious short Il Giorno Dopo (The Day After), a son dedicates his entire life to searching for an elusive river creature that slipped through his father’s grasp when he was young. Visually stunning and mythic in tone, The Day After explores themes of identity and conquest, while revealing the often-overlooked consequences of finally achieving a lifelong goal.
The film opens with the son heading down to the river on a foggy morning. There’s a strong sense of routine to his actions as he prepares for his catch – though his unusual methods immediately have us intrigued. It’s a confident piece of exposition, and we’re instantly hooked (excuse the pun!). While Colombi introduces both the central struggle and the character enduring it, he also makes it abundantly clear that location plays a pivotal role in his storytelling.
“I felt the urge to tell the story of the place I come from, adapting it to a genre that truly represents me,” Colombi discussing the aims of his film.
“They are the kind of places where you’re born and there’s nothing around you except a handful of houses, fog, fields and the river”, the writer/director (he co-wrote the film with Mattia Sivelli) explains while discussing his decision to set the story in Italy’s Piacenza region, where he grew up. Describing the area as “shaped by superstition,” Colombi notes that the stories told to children there often featured the “creatures and witches said to inhabit the world around the river” – a background that goes a long way toward explaining the film’s mythology.
And it’s that mythology that makes The Day After so beguiling. While a flashback offers a brief history of the father and son’s relationship with this elusive beast, there’s a fable-like quality that adds an old-fashioned storytelling magic to Colombi’s tale. Yet, while fantasy drives the narrative, its real impact lies in how it resonates with the real world.
“As long as the internet exists, these places will survive digitally, as part of a collective memory”
Describing the creation of his film as “an act toward the territory itself,” Colombi’s story may centre on a father-son relationship, but its deeper message reflects our connection to the planet we inhabit. “It is a land deeply affected by pollution and climate change,” he explains, sharing that the inspiration behind his film came from the environmental challenges facing his birthplace. “The fogs are becoming rare, the summers increasingly dry, and the river retreats more and more each year.” By capturing this region on film, he adds, “these images will remain forever. As long as the internet exists, these places will survive digitally, as part of a collective memory.”