28 Lug ROMACOREMIO

Villa Doria Pamphili, in Rome. Every day, walkers, athletes, workers, elderly people and solitary visitors cross its paths beneath centuries-old trees. A spontaneous community, a place of encounter, refuge and coexistence.

Among those same trees, the voices of another era resurface. Villa Doria Pamphili was the site of one of the fiercest battles of the Risorgimento, the one that led to the defeat of the Roman Republic in 1849.

One of the most remarkable experiments in popular democracy was crushed by Bonapartist troops, taking with it the idea of participation and community that was rooted in that experience. From this premise, ROMACOREMIO brings back to life the diaries and letters of the soldiers and civilians who lived through the 1849 siege. Through the voice of actor Gabriel Montesi, these testimonies resurface in the present. They are intimate words, written during days of waiting, fear, hope and sacrifice, now echoing among the statues of the Villa. Against the backdrop of a timeless Roman sky, the statues, ancient and motionless, seem to question the present through the voices of the past: what remains today of those democratic aspirations?

The director places himself within the film without ever appearing on screen: in a recording studio, as he works with Montesi to shape the voices of the siege testimonies in a hilarious meta-cinematic sketch; and, above all, wandering through the park. What emerges is the portrait of a place shaped by encounters, conflicts and gestures of care, where memory continues to live and freedom takes form through participation and a sense of community.

ROMACOREMIO is a journey through the “West in our backyard”, marked by the anxieties of our time: from the pandemic to the wars now multiplying across the world, challenging democracy and freedom. Here, past and present mirror one another, bringing unresolved questions, many open issues and few answers to the surface.