Marco, a cynical and ambitious young lawyer, lives in Bari with his partner Martina and their eight-year-old son Mateo. Martina had left Chile and moved to Italy when she met Marco. Their relationship has run its course, however, and Martina longs to go back to her country with Mateo, but Marco, the loving father left out of the equation, is adamantly against the idea. The couple clash for weeks on end, until Martina abruptly leaves the country with their son, goes back to Chile and virtually vanishes. With no news of Mateo, time seems to stand still for Marco. Anguished and unable to cope, he finally rallies and sets off in search of his son.
"The idea for this film springs from the sum total of many things: my constant observation of reality, a desire to depict social transformations that are underway, and then the growing urgency of this story of children torn between two parents: the children of globalization. It's a universal story in the end, above and beyond the two countries chosen here." [Vincenzo Marra]
VINCENZO MARRA (Naples, 1972), in the late 1990s, wrote and directed two shorts, Una rosa prego and La vestizione. His first feature film Sailing Home (2001) earned him many international awards, among which Best Film at the Venice International Film Critics' Week. He went on to make two documentaries - Estranei alla massa, which was selected for Locarno, and Paesaggio a Sud, presented in the New Territories section in Venice. In 2004, Marra wrote and directed his second feature Vento di Terra, which received numerous awards, including the FIPRESCI at Venice. In 2005, he returned to Locarno in the video category with a documentary entitled 58%. He followed this up in 2006 with The Session Is Open, a Venice Days selection; the sidebar would also showcase Marra's The Triplet in 2012. In 2007 Marra's film The Trial Begins premiered at Venice, while the following year he made a return to documentary filmmaking with Il grande progetto. Another documentary, L'amministratore, premiered at the Rome Film Festival in 2013. Last year, Marra contributed a short film, Il ponte, to the anthology film Bridges of Sarajevo.
2015 La prima luce (First Light)
2014 Il ponte (short, in AA.VV., Bridges of Sarajevo)
2013 L'amministratore (doc)
2012 Il gemello (doc, The Triplet)
2008 Il grande progetto (doc)
2007 L'ora di punta (The Trial Begins)
2006 L'udienza è aperta (doc, The Session is Open)
2006 La piazza (short)
2005 58% (doc)
2004 Vento di terra
2003 Paesaggio a Sud (doc)
2002 Estranei alla massa (doc)
2001 Tornando a casa (Sailing Home)
1999 La vestizione (short)
1998 Una rosa prego (short)