Selected for competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, Elisa, the fourth feature film from director Leonardo Di Costanzo of Ischia, is the story of a woman imprisoned for killing her sister and is loosely based on the studies of criminologists Adolfo Ceretti and Lorenzo Natali in their essay "Io Volevo ucciderla".
Elisa, a young woman from a good family who has been in prison for 10 years for the brutal murder of her sister, is played by Barbara Ronchi, while the criminologist Alaoui, who conducts a study on family crimes and follows Elisa, is played by Roschdy Zem. The cast includes Diego Ribon and Valeria Golino. Di Costanzo wrote the screenplay with Bruno Oliviero and Valia Santella.
The film avoids precise temporal references and creates a deliberately suspended atmosphere, choosing instead to delve into the complexity of the human soul.
The mountain setting focusses on the Moncaldo Institute, where Elisa is serving her sentence; it is not a prison enclosed by bars, but a spacious complex in contact with nature, where female prisoners live and work together, aiming to reintegrate into society.
The film was shot in South Tyrol, with a production (cast and crew) that numbered about sixty. Part of the production also took place in Switzerland, in the Canton of Ticino, in the towns of Mendrisio, Vacallo, Morbio Superiore, and Stabio, with the support of the Ticino Film Commission.
The film received development funding from the Emilia-Romagna Region and €500 k in production funding from the IDM Film Commission.
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Selected for competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, Elisa, the fourth feature film from director Leonardo Di Costanzo of Ischia, is the story of a woman imprisoned for killing her sister and is loosely based on the studies of criminologists Adolfo Ceretti and Lorenzo Natali in their essay "Io Volevo ucciderla".
Elisa, a young woman from a good family who has been in prison for 10 years for the brutal murder of her sister, is played by Barbara Ronchi, while the criminologist Alaoui, who conducts a study on family crimes and follows Elisa, is played by Roschdy Zem. The cast includes Diego Ribon and Valeria Golino. Di Costanzo wrote the screenplay with Bruno Oliviero and Valia Santella.
The film avoids precise temporal references and creates a deliberately suspended atmosphere, choosing instead to delve into the complexity of the human soul.
The mountain setting focusses on the Moncaldo Institute, where Elisa is serving her sentence; it is not a prison enclosed by bars, but a spacious complex in contact with nature, where female prisoners live and work together, aiming to reintegrate into society.
The film was shot in South Tyrol, with a production (cast and crew) that numbered about sixty. Part of the production also took place in Switzerland, in the Canton of Ticino, in the towns of Mendrisio, Vacallo, Morbio Superiore, and Stabio, with the support of the Ticino Film Commission.
The film received development funding from the Emilia-Romagna Region and €500 k in production funding from the IDM Film Commission.
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Copyright: ©Oliver Oppitz
Barbara Ronchi, Diego Ribon - Elisa
Copyright: ©Oliver Oppitz
Barbara Ronchi - Elisa
Copyright: ©Oliver Oppitz
Barbara Ronchi - Elisa
Copyright: ©Oliver Oppitz
Roschdy Zem, Barbara Ronchi - Elisa
Copyright: ©Oliver Oppitz
Roschdy Zem - Elisa
Copyright: ©Oliver Oppitz
Valeria Golino, Barbara Ronchi - Elisa
Copyright: ©Oliver Oppitz
Valeria Golino, Roschdy Zem - Elisa
Elisa, 35, has been in prison for ten years for the apparently motiveless murder of her older sister whose corpse she burnt. She claims to remember little or nothing of the crime, as if a veil divides her from the past. When she agrees to meet with criminologist Alaoui and take part in his research, her memories begin to take shape in a tense and inexorable dialogue; in the pain of fully accepting her guilt, Elisa glimpses, perhaps, the first step towards a possible redemption.
