In 1964 in Switzerland, one out of every three workers was foreign, and two out of every three foreigners were Italian. Beautifully shot in black and white, this sensitive documentary about the 500,000-strong Italian community living in Switzerland tells the story of the Swiss discrimination against Italian immigrants looking for work in their country. Considered ‘a problem’ by the Swiss, the Italians were stereotyped as noisy, dirty, dangerous non-citizens and were treated accordingly by immigration officers and the Swiss public.

As an ethnographic account told from the perspective of working-class Italians, this film was called ‘a thunderbolt’ when it first hit Swiss screens in 1964 because it portrays an on-the-street reality previously untapped in Swiss cinema. An interesting historical perspective on the immigrant ‘problem’ that continues to plague Europe.