Basilicata region, late Nineties. Father Gerardo (Placido), parish priest of a little town in the Apennines, recalls his youth, when, at the age of fourteen, he was expelled from a boarding school because he was involved in a homosexuality scandal. The young boy, Gerardo (Pischedda), left out by his friends and with a difficult family relationship, makes friends with a twenty year-old teacher, militant communist and premature feminist, who impresses and charms him completely (an intense Giovanna Mezzogiorno). Her name is Liliana and, in spite of the right wing movements and “his” party, she is opening a school for illiterate girls in an abandoned stable, which in the end is burnt down by local fascists. Liliana runs for a local council seat, but dies during the last meeting before the voting day, struck down not only by an aneurism but also by the too many malignant slanders assailing her due to her alleged affair with the village doctor. All the women attend the funeral, but the parish priest closes the church doors where Father Gerardo is now celebrating mass. This film – possibly the author’s most personal – is inspired by the real story of Liliana Rossi, who lived in Ascoli Satriano (Foggia), where Placido was born, and died when she was twenty-four. Desolate and “western” landscapes of the South of Italy in the postwar period as a tribute to lost and recovered childhood.

Michele Placido

Born in Apulia in 1946, actor with a sound acting training and very popular from the early Seventies (Teresa la ladra by Carlo Di Palma, Romanzo popolare by Mario Monicelli). He becomes internationally famous in 1984, thanks to his interpretation of commissioner Cattani fighting against the mafia in the four RAI serials of La piovra. He has recently reappeared on TV screens in the role of Father Pio. Often acting in art-cinema films, from Salto nel vuoto by Bellocchio (1980) to Mery per sempre by Marco Risi (1990) and Lamerica by Gianni Amelio (1994), he takes up the challenge of directing films on burning issues, different from the tradition of Italian comedy, with intense, creative and daring stories. From his debut with Pummarò, on the illegal immigrants in the South of Italy (1989) to the incestuous story of Le amiche del cuore (1991), from the murder of lawyer Ambrosoli, victim of financial plots (Un eroe borghese, 1995), to the poetic Un viaggio chiamato amore on the relationship between Dino Campana and Sibilla Aleramo (2002, a great success). After the controversial and Pirandellian Ovunque sei (2004), Placido shoots Romanzo criminale, from the homonymous novel by the Apulian Giancarlo De Cataldo (published by Einaudi), portraying Italian history through the thirty-year-long story of the notorious “Magliana gang” of Rome and coming out in 2005.