“I was struck by the words in the screenplay, though ultimately we didn’t know exactly where this story would take us. My character, Elisa, felt only the need to speak about herself as if she hadn’t done so for years. She later discovers that guilt, from a passive feeling, could become active. Her crime is paradoxical: to take a life in order to have one for herself.” This is how an extraordinary Barbara Ronchi describes ‘Elisa’, her character and the title of the latest film by Leonardo Di Costanzo. The film is the fourth Italian production in competition at the Venice Film Festival and will be in theaters starting tomorrow with 01 Distribution.
In the film, Ronchi’s character—a murderer without memory—is questioned by a criminologist, Alaoui (Roschdy Zem), who gently presses her in the halfway house where she lives. Through these encounters and the precise dialogues penned by screenwriters Di Costanzo, Bruno Oliviero, and Valia Santella, Elisa’s memories begin to take shape. For the first time, the woman catches a glimpse of the first step toward a possible redemption.
“I have been dealing with the theme of guilt for some time,” Di Costanzo stated, “but in this case, it is in a transformative dimension. That is to say, considering this character above all as a human being to be reclaimed.”