The Mechanics of Things:

The documentary film “The Mechanics of Things” (original title: “La Mécanique des choses“, German title: “Die Mechanik der Dinge“) by Alessandra Celesia tells the tragic story of an Italian filmmaker’s stray cat that falls from the eighth floor, triggering events that reach as far as China and affect the filmmaker to her very core.

Synopsis

It was a minor miracle that her cat Tito survived the fall from the eighth floor, paralysed but with the will to survive of a cat that had spent years on the street, but Italian filmmaker Alessandra Celesia would never have dreamed of what this triggered, and this is what the film “The Mechanics of Things” is about. It is the mechanics of things that she shows in this film, through which her own very personal story is intertwined with the world’s first spinal cord transplant using an artificial spinal cord (neurogel).

Will my cat ever be able to walk again? Will we ever be able to walk again? This is the question that every paraplegic asks themselves. The film follows six paraplegic French women who volunteered for a clinical trial in China and Tito the cat on their journey to China, where they will receive artificial spinal cord transplants (neurogel).

The fall of her cat also confronts the filmmaker with her own history. With experiences that reach deep into her childhood and which she allows the audience to participate in coming to terms with.

“The Mechanics of Things” is a filmmaker’s journey in search of healing, during which she must learn to accept that there are things that cannot be restored and things that we can restore.

The film was supported by: Eurimages, Région Sud (dev. & prod.), Film Fund – Fondazione Film Commission Vallée d’Aoste, CNC – Fonds d’aide à l’innovation, arte/ZDF, Regionalfonds Hamburg, Ciclic (dev.) PROCIREP, Société des producteurs and ANGOA.