Elisa, thirty-five, has been in prison for ten years, convicted of killing her older sister without apparent motive and burning her body. She claims to remember little to nothing of the crime, as if she had drawn a veil of silence between herself and the past. But when she decides to meet with criminologist Alaoui and take part in his research, in a tense and relentless dialogue memories begin to take shape, and in the pain of fully accepting her guilt, Elisa glimpses, perhaps, the first step toward a possible redemption.

DIRECTOR'S NOTES:
The idea came to me while working on Ariaferma, my previous film, and, in a certain sense, it represents a continuation of it. While Ariaferma was about prison relationships, leaving off-screen the crimes committed by inmates, Elisa is instead the story of an inner journey, that of a woman who committed an act of extreme violence. The film is inspired by the studies of criminologists Adolfo Ceretti and Lorenzo Natali, who have been conducting research on violent behaviour and the perpetrators of brutal crimes for years, including those, as in our case, not stemming from social marginalisation or psychiatric illness. These crimes deeply impact the collective imagination precisely because they are committed by people seemingly beyond suspicion: a quiet couple, a polite person, an ordinary neighbour. We can sense Elisa’s suffering, but also her coldness and ability to manipulate those close to her. Following her story, we oscillate between understanding her inner journey and feeling a profound rejection of someone who has been capable of committing such an extreme act.