In the Box (first feature)

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trailer

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In the Box

In the Box

original title:

In the Box

directed by:

cast:

cinematography:

producer:

country:

Italy

year:

2014

film run:

81'

format:

DCP - colour

release date:

23/04/2015

festivals & awards:

A young woman awakens to find herself inside the four walls of a garage. Walls that appear innocuous like much of the places in a large metropolis, but which now separate her from everyone and everything.
In this small space, an automobile emits carbon dioxide; a gas which one inhales without noticing every day when on the street. A gas that seems harmless, but inside this place, becomes deadly as it saturates the environment.
The woman is no different from many others, affections, work, projects for the future, except for the fact that she is suddenly deprived of her freedom. Something which, up to now, has been unthinkable for her. Exactly at the moment she has decided to make a change in her life.
The person who has closed her inside the garage is an unknown stranger who knows everything about her, and her past. Above all, the thing which is the most important to her in the world: a young daughter who is waiting for her at home. The reason for her imprisonment is not revealed. Only the amount of time available to her in order to save herself.
The woman fights like a tiger to find a way out. There is none. Turning off the engine thus blocking the spread of the poisonous gas is impossible.
She looks for help with the only instrument still available to her and to which is fundamental for her daily routine: her cell phone. But time is needed in order to track her down. And time is consumed as quickly as the oxygen surrounding her.
The stranger makes it known to her that the only way she will not die is by sacrificing the life of a small boy locked inside the trunk of a nearby parked car.
The small boy wears a gas mask which she may take from him and use until the garage door is opened. The small boy is terminally ill with little time left to live. She finds herself in front of a dilemma. She is convinced that she will never do such a thing, sacrifice an innocent life for her own. But her sense of self-preservation is such that she finally appropriates his mask. She is able to use it for only a mere instant until she is finally overcome by a sense of guilt.
The woman realizes that the stranger did not choose her at random. In her past was a failed attempt at suicide. The stranger, in his disturbed mind, feels called upon to offer a second possibility to all those who have despised life by attempting to take it.
The woman, however, now wishes to live, but the stranger is insensitive to her pleas for mercy. Knowing that the end is near and shaken by physical pain, the woman attempts to use a pistol, found in the glove box, against herself. But she is unable.
Time runs out and the woman dies. The garage door lifts up and the unknown man enters the garage in order to release the child: his son. Terrified and exhausted from being an instrument in the hands of his father, he shoots him dead with the pistol.
Now he can leave the garage, a free person.