02/02/2026 - Simone Manetti reconstructs an internationally significant event - one of the most intricate and painful in recent Italian history - displaying solid documentary and cinematographic structure

On 3 February 2016, the body of 28-year-old Italian university researcher Giulio Regeni was found lifeless on the outskirts of Cairo. In the hours which followed, while observing the young man’s body laid out on a table in the morgue, Italian ambassador Maurizio Massari noted “clear signs of torture, injuries all over his body, bruises, fractured fingers, broken teeth, cigarette burns, lacerations on his back”. Directed by Simone Manetti and due for release as a special event on 2, 3 and 4 February via Fandango after several premieres held on the tenth anniversary of Guilio’s death, Giulio Regeni. Tutto il male del mondo [+see also:
interview: Simone Manetti
film profile] presents itself as a film helping to reconstruct the facts of one of the most intricate and painful events in recent Italian history and a case of international, political and diplomatic significance.

The film is a solidly structured investigation revolving around the trial of four Egyptian nationals who are all members of high-level security forces, and focusing on the testimonials delivered by Giulio’s parents, Claudio Regeni and Paola Deffendi, and on the courageous and tenacious lawyer specialising in human rights and immigration, Alessandra Ballerini. The most impactful decision in this docufilm – providing a crucial documentarian aspect but also adding aesthetic and dramatic value from a cinematographic viewpoint – was to combine (courtesy of editor Enzo Pompeo) footage from the trial and interviews with a continual flux of images hailing from a hidden micro-camera used by the man who met with Giulio and who subsequently “sold” him to the secret services. These are “dirty”, shaky, low frame rate images in which we make out the nervous face of this young man who will soon be kidnapped, tortured and brutally murdered. “I saw all the evil in the world reflected in my son’s eyes”, Paola laments.

Regeni graduated in Arabic and politics in Leeds and had been a doctoral student in Cambridge since 2014. He moved to Cairo in 2015 to carry out research into independent unions and Egyptian street vendors, commissioned by the University of Cambridge. The hypothesis is that his research activities were a problem for the local authorities. The date of his disappearance is symbolic. In the courtroom, Middle East historian Giuseppe Dentice reminds the audience that 25 January 2011 was the date on which the protests against President Mubarak began in Tahrir Square. 25 January is consequently a thorny date for current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who fears a repeat of the protests: tanks and plain-clothes police officers and security forces can be found everywhere on the streets of Cairo. A spokesperson for one of these independent street vendor unions ultimately alerts the intelligence forces. Giulio is suspected of being a British secret services agent sent to finance the unions close to the Muslim Brotherhood. But this is no spy story: it’s a case of atrocious conduct by a paranoid regime which has no respect for civil liberties.

President al-Sisi immediately promises full cooperation with the Italian authorities, which he never actually delivers, while the investigative team from Rome are automatically misled and deceived. Economic (gas and oil) and political (immigration) relations between Italy and Egypt are too important to lose. With the trial about to resume, Guilio’s parents keep the public’s attention firmly fixed on their hunt for the truth. “In Egypt too”, lawyer Ballerini stresses, “there are people and movements who believe in civil rights and who are fighting to protect them. Justice for Guilio means justice for them, too”.

Giulio Regeni – Tutto il male del mondo was produced by Ganesh Produzioni and Fandango, in collaboration with Sky, Percettiva, 5/6, Hop Film and Wider Studio.

(Translated from Italian)