Emilio, a young man from the Emilia-Romagna region with a liberal and exuberant character cannot find a job, so he decides to join the corps of the Carabinieri. After training in Rome, where he makes friends with a quiet and stern Sardinian of his same age, he is assigned to a little village in the Barbagia area (its name is Coloras in the film, but in fact it does not exist. It is a “synthesis” of Orgosolo, Mamoiada, Benetutti, Gavoi…), the most “impenetrable” area of Sardinia, where Vittorio De Seta shot Banditi a Orgosolo in 1961. Emilio is happy with that due to the “tourist” image of the island he has, which is however soon disproved by facts: his first assignment is an investigation into the murder of a shepherd killed in front of his little son Efisio, who, hidden in a bush, recognizes the murderer. In short, Emilio realizes he is living in a “world apart”, made of cattle-stealing and hostility towards the authorities, a wild and archaic world whose beauty is represented by Giacomina, a beautiful girl of the village. The protagonist has a troubled love affair with her, made even more difficult by the suspicion of local people towards the so-called “continentali”. Meanwhile, the plot complicates, and Emilio is assaulted when he is with Giacomina… The ending is bitter, the picture of Sardinia is realistic, clear, detailed. A tardy, very interesting though sometimes prolix, debut of a carabinierefilmmaker.

Piero Sanna

He was born in Benetutti (Sassari) in 1943. He joined up the corps of the Carabinieri in 1962, and is currently working for the Task Force of the provincial headquarters of Milan. He has always devoted his spare time to his great passion: cinema. In 1975 he took out a diploma from the School of Cinema of Milan, and since 1976 he has been collaborating with “Ipotesi di Cinema”, the school founded by Ermanno Olmi which has trained several young talents. In 1979 Sanna directed a documentary on cardinal Carlo Maria Martini and, the following year, another one on general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, who was killed by mafia in 1982. In 1986 he shoots Costa Smeralda (un’isola nell’isola) on the problems posed by a tourism jeopardizing Sardinian culture and environment, in 1987 Mascaras, an anthropological documentary on the rituals of Sardinian masks (aquired by the Italian RAI TV), and Chida santa (1991), dedicated to the Passion rituals during the Holy Week in Sardinia. Before La destinazione, largely inspired by his personal experience, Sanna dedicated to the Carabinieri the documentary Vita di un giorno (1989) on the preventive service of the Corps.