Stand By Me

Roberto Benigni's monologue dedicated to the life of St. Peter: a unique event held in the heart of Vatican City to celebrate the Jubilee.

The docudrama recounts the five years (from 1974 to 1979) in which lawyer Giorgio Ambrosoli investigated the workings of a corrupt and lethal system, seen through the eyes of Finance Police Marshal Silvio Novembre and reconstructed by mixing fictional scenes, archive footage, and valuable testimonies.

Following the death of Pope Francis, 135 cardinals enter the Vatican in total secrecy to pray, maneuver, and vote among themselves as both electors and candidates in an ancient ritual that determines the future of the Catholic Church.

Toto Riina, the formidable godfather of the Italian mafia, is believed to have ordered more than 150 murders. Having become a mythical figure, his character is shrouded in mystery. Embraced by the media and the collective imagination, his fantasized representation gradually replaced the real person behind the character. Who was the Sicilian leader of the Cosa Nostra really?

20-year-old Marco is remarkably attuned to the suffering of people everywhere. He writes poetry but turns to drugs and drink to achieve “the forgetting”, that unconscious state that is impenetrable to his existential angst and other fears. He’s fleeing pain but above all, he’s fleeing from himself. When he goes to work for the cleaners’ cooperative at Bambin Gesù Hospital, he’s sure that this experience, the contact with sick children, will be the death of him.

Through interviews with key figures and previously unseen period images, the story of the 1982 World Cup and the Italian national team, seen also from a private perspective, is contrasted with that of a country led by President Sandro Pertini.