An avalanche of nominations for Ariaferma at the David di Donatello 2022. The film entirely made in Sardinia, conceived and shot entirely on the island in full lockdown, the latest work by director Leonardo Di Costanzo, is officially in the running for 11 awards.
Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Silvio Orlando), Best Supporting Actor (Fabrizio Ferracane), Best Original Screenplay, Best Producer, Best Cinematography, Best Composer (Pasquale Scialò), Best Set Design, Best Editing, Best Sound.
The work is inspired by the barbaric code and is shot entirely in Sardinia, with its epicenter in Sassari in the tuff prison of San Sebastiano. A structure built in 1871 and iconic enough to lend itself to becoming the Mortana prison, an imaginary space that is the maximum security penitentiary of Barbagia. A place that no one seems to want to live in, neither the prisoners nor the guards. And not even time, in this place made asphyxiated and suspended even by the soundtrack, with an aura of sacredness in which the humanity of the protagonists lives in limbo.
“The Mortana prison - explains the director - does not actually exist: it is an imaginary place, built after having visited many prisons. Almost everywhere we have found great willingness to talk, to tell each other; it happened that the meetings involved agents, management and some prisoners together. Back then it was easy to create a strange atmosphere of conviviality, they almost competed in telling stories. We laughed too. Then, when the banquet ended, everyone returned to their roles and the men in uniform, turnkey, took the other prisoners back to the cells. Faced with this drastic return to reality, we outsiders felt disorientation. It is precisely this sense of disorientation that guided the making of the film: Ariaferma is not a film about the conditions of Italian prisons. It is perhaps a film about the absurdity of prison ”.
The plot is all around this dilapidated prison that is about to be closed, when suddenly a counterorder arrives. Twelve inmates and some officers have to stay a little longer than the others because the structure that is to accommodate them is not yet ready. It is therefore necessary to manage the new relationships in a completely different way, given that a large part of the building is closed. The cast includes Silvio Orlando and Toni Servillo, for the first time starring together in a film. With them Fabrizio Ferracane, Salvatore Striano, Roberto De Francesco, Pietro Giuliano, Nicola Sechi, Leonardo Capuano, Antonio Buil Pueyo, Giovanni Vastarella, Francesca Ventriglia.
