Red Film (II)

This is a true story about forty Jewish children on their way to Palestine, who were blocked by the German and Italian occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941. Before finding a haven at Villa Emma in Nonantola in northern Italy, where they arrived on June 17, 1942, the children spent several adventurous months in Slovenia, caught up in the ongoing fight between the partisans and the Italian army. In April 1943, another 33 children, some from the Balkans, others from France, joined the original group. All were orphans who had lost their parents in concentration camps and had subsequently been smuggled out of Germany by Recha Freier, a well-known Zionist. The group ranged in age from six to twenty one and settled in at Villa Emma with their chaperones and teachers, Josef Indig, Marco Schoky and the pianist Boris Jochverdson.

Leonardo Vitale was the first Cosa Nostra turncoat to cooperate with the authorities. In 1973, he denounced Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, Michele Greco, and Vito Ciancimino to the police, but he could not withstand imprisonment and lost his sanity. He ended up spending a full ten years in a criminal lunatic asylum. Yet, upon his release, the Mafia—which has a long memory—showed that it had not forgotten him.

Matteo, a forty-year-old cartoonist, divides his time between work and family and nurtures the dream of publishing his own comic book starring Solo Valentine, a selfish superhero who uses his powers only for himself. He is married to Paola, a successful writer. A pleasant family picture, with three daughters, Virginia (9), Ginevra (6), Melania (2), and two dogs, is thrown into crisis when Sara, an old acquaintance of Matteo's, reappears with an offer he cannot refuse: to publish his comic book on condition that he moves to Paris.

Rocco, a former boxer disappointed by life and his profession, and Ben, an undocumented immigrant in Italy who barely manages to earn enough money for a sandwich and to pay the rent for a cot, tell a story of sport, friendship, and social redemption.