see also
original title:
Meno male è lunedì
directed by:
cast:
Filahi Abdelkarim, Nazar Ahmad, Duka Arben, Massimo Barillari, Luigi Boschieri, Carlo Cavazza, Claudio Gallerani, Fathi Gharnoughi, Giancarlo Giovannini, Aldo Gori, Luigi Lanzarini, Lorenzo Lo Preiato, Vincenzo Miani, Valerio Monteventi, Fathmir Myslihaka, Alla Parparim, Mirko Pasqua Di Bisceglie, Federcio Pignatelli, Stjepan Prnjat, Roberto Ragazzi, Rochid Said, Silvano Simoncini, Renzo Tamari, Claudio Tinti, Ferdinando Valenti
screenplay:
cinematography:
editing:
music:
production:
country:
Italy
year:
2014
film run:
80'
format:
HD/DCP - colour
release date:
19/12/2014
festivals & awards:
A group of metalworkers comes out of retirement to teach the trade to 13 prisoners in the prison workshop. Exchanging knowledge reverses the freedom-imprisonment relationship. Using the right screw becomes a metaphor for rebuilding a life. The prisoners’ workshop is a space of freedom. The worker is a metalworker back in jail, but for the prisoner this role is a new lease on life. The film does not dwell on the past of its characters. The tone is light, like a comedy. For “work on the outside”, Monday is the worst day of all; for “work on the inside”, it’s the best. Saturday and Sunday are tedious for the prisoner-worker who wants no time off and can’t wait to get back to work.
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT:
Prison is a timeless nonplace.
The worst punishment for a prisoner is to be
deprived of the passing of time. The inmates who
work in this unusual workshop inside the prison of
Dozza have found their own space for freedom and
time for life. The days of the week have meaning
and a pace dictated by their shifts at work. The
gestures and words burst out, building trades and
human relations. Neither prisoners nor free men,
just workers united by their jobs, and the exchange
of knowledge, “stories of screws and lives”. “For me
it’s just a workshop – says a tutor/worker – it’s just
like a soccer field: you can’t hear the audience”. I
imagined Just Monday as a “sophisticated comedy”
behind bars. Eight days, from Monday to Monday,
to build an important object, a ‘Spider’ with an
orange sunroof, a fundamental mechanism in an
advanced system for packaging. The dialogues and
confessions of the characters flow as the workers
make the piece; they become “the story of the
piece” and of the hands that created it.