cinematography
Loris G. Nese
editing
Chiara Marotta
music
Raffaele Caputo

sound
Tommaso Barbaro
Davide Maresca
Flavio Califano
Chiara Marotta

cast
Francesco Di Leva
Mario Di Leva

production
Lapazio Film
with Rai Cinema
producer
Chiara Marotta

world sales
Lapazio Film
lapaziofilm@gmail.com

Italian distribution
Lapazio Film
lapaziofilm@gmail.com

In the 1990s, a child grows up surrounded by deep secrets. The men in his family, his father included, die too young, but he is too young to understand why. When he learns that his surname ‘brands’ him in the eyes of everyone in his city, he gets the feeling that it’s his own life he sees in the gangster and horror movies he loves to watch; they reflect the violence that changed his existence. And it is precisely through cinema that, once a man, he starts investigating his past and reconstructing his own identity. Turning his story into a film becomes the only way to grapple with an inconvenient legacy and fill the void that he has always known.

2025 Una cosa vicina (doc)
2023 Z.O. (short)
2021 Il turno (short)
2020 Malumore (short)
2018 Quelle brutte cose (short)

“The film sprang from an urge to show the confusion in a life spent amidst doubts about one’s own past – doubts that worm their way under the skin and into any interpretation of the world. This emotional journey starts with the innocence of childhood and its fascination with myths; continues in adolescence, fueled by the seduction of evil; and drives an adult to seek out a more complex truth, one that departs from the rhetoric of the news stories and the prevailing narrative. Alternating archive materials, animation, home movies and documentary footage, the film tries to show the many points of view that make up the story of a family marked by tough choices, devastating losses, love, and resilience, day in and day out. Cinema becomes the tool for asking questions that may have no answer, and for piecing a picture together – a partial picture, like all the others.” (Loris G. Nese)

Loris G. Nese is a writer and director, animator, DOP and co-founder of Lapazio Film who studied film in Bologna. He creates hybrid stories blending fiction, animation, and the documentary. In 2018, his short Quelle brutte cose won an award at the Critics’ Week in Venice and was selected for Sundance. Two years later, Malumore won kudos at Torino, DOK Leipzig, and Krakow and screened at Annecy Animation FF, Atlanta, Slamdance, and Belfort Entrevues. In 2021, Il turno competed at Venice (Orizzonti) and the Palm Springs International ShortFest. The same year, Nese did cinematography and animation on Chiara Marotta’s film Il momento di passaggio, presented at IDFA. In 2023, his short Z.O. was kudoed by Locarno and the Brooklyn Film Fest and competed at Alice nella città and Cinemed in Montpellier. Nese is currently developing a film selected for the Torino Film Lab and Biennale College. He also directs video installations, documentary series, and music videos.