Lifes to be Wasted (second feature)

original title:

Vite da sprecare

directed by:

cinematography:

set design:

costume design:

music:

Lello Anfalino

producer:

country:

Italy

year:

2018

film run:

86'

format:

DCP - colour & b/w

aspect ratio:

4:3

festivals & awards:

  • Foggia Film Festival 2019: in Competition

Lifes to be wasted takes place in Sicily in 1976 and tells what has gone down in history as the "massacre of Alcamo Marina", in which two young policemen were brutally murdered.
Lifes to be wasted is first and foremost the story of the death of those two men: the pinned Salvatore Falcetta of 35 years and the simple police Carmine Apuzzo, barely nineteen.
The two soldiers were killed in their sleep the night between 26 and 27 January and immediately the official versions provided by the same “Carabinieri” did not convince the press nor the public opinion.
Lifes to be wasted is also and above all the story of five other men, some at the time still under age, unjustly accused and forced to confess a crime they did not commit and for which they were later sentenced to several years of imprisonment (Giuseppe Vesco, Giovanni Mandalà, Enzo Ferrantelli, Gaetano Santangelo e Giuseppe Gulotta).
The former sergeant of the Carabinieri Renato Olino has contributed to give greater strength and truth to History. After more than three decades, he decided to tell the whole first phase of the investigations and interrogations.
Lifes to be wasted is the story of a massacre without guilty, still today wrapped in the mists of one of the many mysteries of this state and its dark plots.
The story of a massacre that involved, according to some collaborators of justice and a police inspector, the worst anti-democratic forces in the Country: the Mafia; the infamous paramilitary organization "Stay Behind - Gladio"; the "deviated" secret services; the neo-fascist groups.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES:
Lifes to be wasted is a film that uses the canons and rhythms of the crime genre to tell the story of a double murder still unresolved today and of the investigations that brought to justice and public opinion of the false culprits: some young people, perfect as scapegoats because they lack economic and cultural means to defend their rights before the powerful machine of the state.
The basis of this project is the idea of telling a story that deserves to be told. The story, mind you, not of a judicial error but of a real "procedural fraud": the "evidence" against at least four of the five arrested (and subsequently convicted) were false because they were manufactured by the same investigators; the "confessions" were extracted through the use of both physical and psychological violence and torture; all the phases of the arrests and interrogations were also manipulated: the times, the places, the presence of the investigators and those of the defense lawyers.
All events have taken the contours of the nightmare from the very beginning. A nightmare even more anguished because you can give it a very specific name: state violence. A group of Carabinieri who turn into cruel and ruthless executioners to find the truth about the murder of their colleagues or, at least, one truth among many. A truth convenient for many because they built a "perfect crime": the innocent in prison or fleeing to a foreign country, closed investigations, the real responsible in freedom.
The feeling is that investigators were in a hurry to close the investigation and deliver to the press, the judiciary and public opinion of the guilty. True, presumed or false that they were. For the investigators, those young people "were all criminals, men to be chained, lives to be wasted, without leaving a trace".
What really happened that night?
Who were the material executors of the double homicide?
Who are the possible principals?
Why were the two carabinieri murdered?
What have they done or seen to "deserve" to do that end?