SINOPSYS
Between 1997 and 1999, Alessandro Portelli diligently collected a vast repertoire of narratives relating to the massacre at the Fosse Ardeatine. This film aims to faithfully reproduce the words spoken by some of the protagonists of those tragic events.

NOTE ON THE FILM
Six women, arranged in an orderly row against the dark, bare backdrop of a theatre, tell their stories. They are the wives, mothers and daughters of six of the 335 men who, on 24 March 1944, were shot and buried in a mass grave at the Fosse Ardeatine. Regardless of their social status, whether working class or middle class, whether they were active partisans or daughters of generals and engineers, they all feel the duty and desire to share their experiences, permeated with pain, anger and indomitable determination. Francesca Comencini brings to the big screen the film adaptation of the play, curated by herself together with Mia Benedetta, based on recordings collected by Alessandro Portelli between 1997 and 1999. The result is a poignant oral narrative, accentuated by the painful and emotional suspense created by the fast pace of the editing.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
“I have constructed a story told by six voices that follow one another and retrace the tragic hours that preceded the massacre at the Fosse Ardeatine, the anguished days that followed, the days spent searching for those 335 men who seemed to have disappeared into thin air, and the years after the news of the massacre. Years in which these women picked themselves up and started living again.”
Francesca Comencini