Handmade Cinema tells the story of the great family of Italian cinema who has saved the heritage of its manual skills and of an art which the entire world envies Cinecittà, thanks to names which have never become "brands" and to the hands of special artisans who passed their skills on, as a family secret, from father to son.

In this film, hands are always in close up. Hands that tell of the passion and history of real dynasties, family businesses which today still continue to pass on not just the tradition but the skill needed to building a film starting from a pair of scissors, a needle, a hammer and a screwdriver, a comb, a make-up brush, a semiprecious stone or maybe a little artisan idea which still manages to compete with technology.

The War of the Volcanoes is a documentary entirely based on the rich footage depicting the intense and dramatic love story between the world’s most famous actress (Ingrid Bergman), the most appreciated director by Hollywood of his time (Roberto Rossellini) and Italy’s most beloved actress (Anna Magnani).

The War of the Volcanoes is a story of wrath, suffering and love and at the same time the story of Stromboli, a God-forgotten land, that for the time of the filming becomes the center of the world. Two colours reflect its primitive and mythical nature, the black of the volcano and of the sand and the red of the lava. A place with a strong identity, capable of destabilizing, of bearing the soul of our characters and to give them the strength they need to make courageous decisions.

The War of the Volcanoes tells a part of Italian and world cinema history, an intense and timeless story like the island where it takes place.

Viewing the images of those films once again and sometimes speaking about them with the protagonists.

Verifying to what extent the city has changed (and continues to change).

Witnessing how Italian cinema – which had described the city when it was occupied by the nazi-fascists, its rebirth after the war, reconstruction, the economic boom, property speculation... - has ended up becoming the great chronicler of life in Rome.