Synopsis
The current mobility in our metropolises has come to the saturation of traffic and air, poisoned by vehicle exhausts.
Paolo Pasquini from Bologna, brilliant inventor and builder, true artist, has spent his life designing and producing practical and simple objects and vehicles designed to considerably improve mobility.
The realization of the "Barrel", a mechanism for opening and closing sliding windows in vehicles, obtains great consensus, such as to allow Pasquini to invest in zero-emission vehicles.
Pasquini immediately understands that these vehicles must follow a new conceptual philosophy.
He created the Zero for Lavezzari and the Log for Moretti. But electric vehicles, built in the early 70s, are considered "useless". His foresight is not rewarded by entrepreneurship and sufficiently watched by politics.
His first original electric vehicle approved in Italy, the BoXel (electric box or Bologna for electric), a modular van just three meters long with a load of 500 kg. and three people in the cabin.
Built in '84, it is still considered unsurpassed for its practical and economic qualities. In the first international competitions it achieves many successes. It is also equipped with a quick battery change despite being the cheapest van ever seen at the time. Three automotive engineers from Turin ask to test the Boxel and are amazed!
However, they state quietly that the vehicle has a defect: it does not wear out!... Brilliant his idea to create from a "rib" of the Boxel a two-seater "roadster" with all-wheel drive that challenges the big car manufacturers and is often a winner.
Pasquini's creativity seems to never run out, crossing sectors of agriculture, rail mobility, architecture and more, until his untimely death.
The documentary is the story of his pilot who was also a collaborator for the homologation and the beginning of the production of the Boxel, alternating with interviews with friends, collaborators, competitors and repertoire images.
The result is the drawing of a character with an embarrassing humanity and creativity who knew how to identify and solve future difficulties with the courage of his thought never stopped, untied by conventions.
This documentary dusted off Paolo Pasquini's projects and found them to be very current. They told him that his creations were thirty years ahead; today we discover that we are at least
thirty years late.
Now that Paolo Pasquini is gone, the documentary dedicated to him and his vehicles, including his BoXel that still "hisses" in the center of Bologna, are, unfortunately, the only testimonies of his genius that should have been heard more for a more sustainable world. More than thirty interviewees, including the engineer Mauro Forghieri, the journalist Elvio Deganello, the philosopher Stefano Bonaga.
Credits
Direction Andrea Pavone Coppola
Music by Arianna Finelli, Stefano Zoffoli, Stefano Falqui Massidda
Editing Andrea Pavone Coppola, Paolo Petrosino
Production Studio Pasquini and Crowd funding with Eppela
The documentary was selected by Biografilm Festival 2013, Estate Doc and Doc in Tour 2014.