“WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE” is the fifth short film created as part of the theater training project “Future Scenarios,” which Fort Apache Cinema Teatro has been conducting inside the Velletri Detention Center since 2020 with the support of the Lazio Region, in collaboration with IISS Cesare Battisti - Velletri – Prison Section.
GENRE: Short film
LANGUAGE: Italian
LOCATION: Italy
DURATION: 28 min
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2025
A FORT APACHE CINEMA TEATRO AND JUMPING FLEA CO-PRODUCTION
DISTRIBUTED BY ALLEGORIE FILM
featuring the inmate actors of the Velletri Detention Center as part of the "Future Scenarios" Project
Tommaso A.
Waler B.
Luca C.
Danilo C.
Luca G.
Andrea G.
Fabrizio M.
Cristiano P.
Simone P.
Gianni P.
Luca R.
Tbor S.
William T.
Rachid Y.
Cristiano Z.
Claudio Z.
Simone Z.
Written and directed by Giulio Maroncelli
Director of Photography Alessandro Lazzi
Editing and Sound Simone Spampinato
Composer Luca Novelli
Writing Collaboration Valentina Esposito e Simone Spampinato
Workshop Leaders Giulio Maroncelli, Simone Spampinato, Valentina Esposito, Gabriella Indolfi, Viola Centi
Tutor Antonino Marrari
A Fort Apache Cinema Teatro and Jumping Flea production, with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Lazio Region, UCEBI Eight per Thousand Funds, in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice - Department of Correctional Administration - Velletri Detention Center, the Ombudsman for the Rights of Persons Deprived of Personal Liberty of the Lazio Region, and the I.I.S.S. Cesare Battisti of Velletri - Prison Section
Artistic Direction Valentina Esposito
Communication, Promotion, and Social Media Gabriella Indolfi
Administrative Manager Laura Hanija
SYNOPSIS:
Within the walls of the prison, a group of incarcerated actors imagines a romantic encounter that does not yet exist, but could. Interweaving fiction and documentary, the film allows an utopic room made of breaths, memories, ghosts, and desires to emerge through bodies and words, without sets or artifices. An inner place where love resists time and guilt, where the fear of judgment blends with the need to be seen, touched, and heard. “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” is a sensitive journey into male vulnerability and the universal need for affection, questioning the boundaries between confinement and freedom, justice and humanity.
PRODUCTION NOTES:
The documentary stems from a simple yet profoundly political gesture: imagining love where it is denied. Without building complex set designs, but relying instead on the voice, imagination, heartbeat, modesty, and the vertigo of desire, the incarcerated performers—who actually inhabit the prison space—designed a non-existent room over the course of the workshop. A room made of words, flesh, absence, and resistance. Through a hybrid form suspended between reality and fiction, the project merges poetic creation and documentary, allowing emotions to emerge in their raw nudity. In this film, eros is not merely eroticism: it is the vital tension that keeps hearts burning even in the dark. The documentary was created as part of the theater training workshop aimed at inmates at the Velletri Detention Center (Casa Circondariale di Velletri), curated by the Fort Apache Teatro Cultural Association, with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Lazio Region, and the UCEBI Eight per Thousand Funds (Fondi Otto per Mille UCEBI).