Sometimes, history or audiovisual studies are not too far away from engineering. Federico is a case in point. This mechanical engineer has been working at CERN for ten years now, but his attention and interests go beyond the boundaries of science.

Federico studied mechanical engineering at Politecnico di Torino, about 60 kilometres from Ivrea, his hometown. As a good Italian, he misses the typical food of his region, the one that is not easy to find abroad. But fortunately, his childhood and adolescence are relatively close to CERN, where he has enjoyed his first and, so far, last work experience.

This is why, before the pandemic, he was able to go back home once, sometimes even twice, a month. Since the arrival of Covid-19 the distances have become longer, and with them, the hours of the days.

It was during the confinement that Federico delved into the magic of cinema. He began to focus on the more technical aspects, and also to appreciate the aesthetic features of the films. Some of them, like The Great Beauty (2013) or American Beauty (1999), come to his mind when the word beauty appears, and not only because of their titles, but because cinema is another form of art. He thinks that watching a good film is comparable to watching a painting or a sculpture, aesthetically speaking.

At CERN, Federico coordinates the engineering unit which is within the mechanical and materials engineering (MME) group. He also supervises young students and colleagues, being able to work with them and train them, which keeps him very motivated. It is a great reason for a non-stop improvement in terms of knowledge and skills.

But this step of his work that he likes so much was not there from the beginning. Shortly after starting at CERN, when he was working on the design of several particle accelerator components, he noticed that here he had the opportunity to learn and to work surrounded by experts in many fields. What began as a two or three-year work adventure abroad ended up becoming a wonderful daily routine

If he plays with hypotheticals and desires, Federico would like to study history. Maybe in a few years, maybe when he retires. Maybe he never will. The important thing is that he is now very passionate about history and about continuing to discover the universal language of cinema, which is in Sorrentino’s words, its most beautiful component. As one of the characters in Youth (2015) said, we “have to believe in everything that has the possibility of being realised”.

In these times that fit in a verse of a poem by Amelia Roselli, where “il mondo é un dente strappato”, Federico is quite happy with where he is and with what he does. Let’s keep it that way.

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