The neighborhood (and local commerce) is the crossroads of the sociality of the new cities

In this logic, American Express is committed to the “Shop Small” campaign which aims to encourage citizens to support local and independent businesses. Last year a series of guides developed in collaboration with Lonely Planet magazine Italy was launched, dedicated to the most dynamic districts of Italy, including Milan, Rome, Florence and Naples.

This year the credit card circuit relaunches with a short film entirely dedicated to the island, one of the neighborhoods that symbolize the transformation carried out in the last decade by the Lombard capital. With particular attention to small businesses and traders who are the heart of the neighborhood that develops in the shadow of the skyscrapers of Piazza Gae Aulenti, the film, made in collaboration with OffiCine, the cinema laboratory of the European Institute of Design and ‘Anteo, celebrates the renewed vitality of local communities, revealing the hidden face of the neighborhood and how it has evolved over time, managing to balance its historical roots with modernity.

Under the artistic supervision of Silvio Soldini, the camera takes the public on a journey through the streets and squares of the neighborhood, animated by numerous craft shops, restaurants and clubs, reporting the voices and stories of the people who live there, stopping on the stories of some commercial activities chosen as a symbol of a new paradigm of the city that knows how to rethink itself in the name of a city on a human scale.