Produced in 2015 with the sponsorship of the Ministry of Justice, the movie stars five inmates serving time with “alternative measures”. It draws its inspiration from the biography of the performers in order to tell the tale of four fathers desperately trying to reconnect with their children by coming home after years spent away. Pippo Delbono is the only professional actor in this work which involved the real family members of the protagonists and that unveils to the viewer the most delicate and private aspect of the reinsertion path of ex-convicts. The docufilm, nominated to the Nastro D’Argento 2017 Award, was presented to the Buenos Aires International Festival of  Independent Cinema where it obtained the Award Special Mention of the Jury.

 

Director: Valentina Esposito

Cast: Alessandro Bernardini, Matteo Cateni, Romolo Napolitano, Giancarlo Porcacchia, Sandro Verzili,

extraordinary participation of Pippo Delbono

Writer: Valentina Esposito

DOP: Luca Nervegna

Editing: Christian Lombardi

Music: Luca Novelli

Sound Editing: Claudio Marani

Producer: Maurizio Albano, Riccardo Neri

Production Co: Simon Film, Lupin Film

Movie recognized as cultural interest by the Minister of the Heritage and the Cultural Activities, with the Patronage of the Justice Ministry and Lazio’s Regional Council, with the contribute of Lazio Region, Cinema and Audiovisual fund.

 

- Venice Gap-Financing Market, ​ 71th Venice International Film Festival 2014,

- Award Special Jury Mention to the BAFICI 2016 - Buenos Aires International Festival of Indipendent     Cinema, Official Selection;

- Prisma 2016 – Italian Cinema Review ​by the Unibes Cultural at Sao Paulo in Brasil.

- RIFF – Rome Independent Film Festival 2016 - Official Selection;

- Cairo International Women Film Festival 2017 – Official Selection;

- SIFF – Sofia International Film Festival 2017 – Out of Competition;

- Docufilm nominated for the Nastro d’Argento 2017 Award.

 

Ombre della sera is about coming back: coming back home and coming back to your loved ones after years away. Inspired by the protagonists and their families’ real lives, the movie flows discreetly between truth and cinematographic reconstruction, in order to tell the moving tale of these people forever condemned to live between the life inside and the life outside the prison, between the past’s shadows and the desperate need to find oneself back in the present. On all of them is the weight of an eternal condemn, the consciousness of the pain inflicted to the loved ones, the feeling of culpability towards the children, a weight that no prison sentence can expiate, however long. 

                                                                                                                            Valentina Esposito

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“The film by Valentina Esposito recreates going from confinement to freedom displaying a dry tone and a firmness that is discreet and potent like those souls that inhabit the outside world once more. The reunions with the family, the evidence of the passing of time, the weight of reclusion that lags in those bodies that now go around the houses as though they were sliding through unknown territory. The film never gives in to any easy lyricism regarding an unlikely definitive redemption of the characters, nor does it pontificate on the irresistible need for an emotional adaptation free from the social environment that drove those men to jail in the first place. Ombre della sera discovers a secret limbo located halfway between prison and the truly free world, and unveils it in front of the audience ”. 

                                                                                                                                                                               David Obarrio, Bafici 2016

 

 

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