Capturing Quarantine Oral Histories
 
Interview with Samuele Bevilacqua

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Description

Samuele Bevilacqua was in Moncalieri, Italy, where he lived for most of his childhood. Bevilacqua describes his childhood in Italy as lonely, due to not being able to connect with the children he went to school with because he lived in the neighboring city. At the age of thirteen, Bevilacqua and his family moved to West Lafayette, Indiana. There he attended West Lafayette Junior/Senior High School and connected with a small circle of friends and Bevilacqua undertook more artistic endeavors. By high school, Bevilacqua discovered his love for film and film-making and discovered friends that shared this same love. Bevilacqua graduated high school in 2019 and during the fall of 2019, Bevilacqua moved to Chicago, Illinois to attend Columbia College Chicago, where he is currently majoring in Film with a focus on directing, with a projected graduation date of 2023.

Publication Date

5-2020

Publisher

Columbia College Chicago

City

Chicago

Keywords

Italy, Indiana, film, filmmaker, COVID-19, pandemic, Chicago, Illinois, United States, coronavirus

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Education | History | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Sociology

Comments

Samuele Bevilacqua recounts his upbringing in Moncalieri, Italy and describes his childhood as “lonely” and he notes this as the beginning of his pursuit into more artistic endeavors. Bevilacqua describes the transition period of his life after his family’s move to West Lafayette, Indiana when he was 13 years old. He compares life in Italy to life in the United States, focusing on the dynamics of his social life and his experiences in Italian and American schools — noting both differences and similarities. Bevilacqua discusses his experience finding love for cinema and film and talks about his decision to attend Columbia College Chicago to major in film. He describes his life during his first semester in college in Chicago, mentioning his enjoyment of walking around the city before the pandemic — something that he is no longer able to do. He describes the impact quarantine and having to stay indoors has had on his mental health, discussing the challenges it has presented in productivity and school work. Bevilacqua, having been born in Italy, has most of his relatives currently residing there, where the pandemic has had a different effect than in the United States. This provides him with a unique perspective, as he experienced the outbreak in America already aware of the circumstances in Italy. Bevilacqua then reveals the feelings associated with being another continent away from one’s family during a global pandemic, and tells some of the ways his family try to maintain communication and stay connected with one another.

Conducted in spring 2020 by an Oral History: The Art of the Interview student, this interview with a fellow student in the class reflects on the pandemic and how it impacted their life. The interview is conducted based on the life history approach to oral history.

Interview with Samuele Bevilacqua

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