An abandoned hotel, nestled in the forests of Alto Adige/South Tyrol, serves as the rehabilitation centre for female prisoners. This is where Elisa, directed by Leonardo Di Costanzo, selected for Competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, took shape. The film is distributed by 01 Distribution in cinemas from 5 September, and stars Barbara Ronchi, Roschdy Zem, Valeria Golino, and Diego Ribon.
The Moncaldo Institute is a facility with a special role in Elisa: it is not a prison circled by bars, but a spacious place in the midst of nature, where female prisoners live, work, and serve their sentences with the aim of reintegrating into society. "With “Ariaferma”, I wanted to film guilt directly, front on, to walk into a cell to metaphorize the concept. With “Elisa”, however, I was interested in finding a place that was more than a prison, a place which isn't simply confinement, but also the possibility of transformation," Di Costanzo explained.
Elisa (Barbara Ronchi) has been convicted of her sister's murder. As a prisoner in the facility, she chooses to undertake a rehabilitation program with a criminologist, Alaoui (Roschdy Zem), who is researching family crimes. His approach is not punitive but humane: he doesn't look at the murderer as a "monster," but as a person.
"This is the examination of evil, not to form an expert opinion, but considering the perpetrator as a human being, in order to work on a possible transformation. I find this a profoundly political approach," the director explained.
The film questions the themes of evil and guilt, and, in particular, responsibility. "At first, it seems that Elisa chooses the programme driven by the narcissistic need to speak, as if she hadn't for years," said Barbara Ronchi. "Then she realizes that guilt is a passive emotion. Thanks to the criminologist, she learns to delve deeper, to find about herself and take responsibility, with a real fear of what awaits her outside, not inside prison."
The choice to set the story in South Tyrol is no coincidence. The mountain landscape, posed in delicate balance between harmony and isolation, is an integral part of the narrative. IDM Film & Music Commission Südtirol supported the production, involving approximately thirty local professionals. As producer Carlo Cresto-Dina notes: "South Tyrol is a fertile place for cinema, it knows how to treat its industry workers, recognising their value”.
Di Costanzo emphasized the importance of context: "I didn't want a prison cell; I wanted an environment that would expose the characters to life, to nature, to the possibility of change. This rehabilitation centre becomes the symbol for a question that concerns us all: how to live with evil without reducing the issue to one of mere punishment and revenge."