Lucky Red and Dardennes produce De Maria’s La Prima Linea
Shooting kicked off on February 9 in Turin’s Carceri Nuove prison on Renato De Maria’s film La Prima Linea. The film is based on Miccia Corta (“Short Fuse”), the autobiographical novel by Sergio Segio, who went by the name Commander Sirio of the armed Communist organization Prima Linea and in 1983 received a 30-year sentence for the 1979 murder of judge Emilio Alessandrini.
The book takes place over one day, January 3, 1982, when Segio attacked the Rovigo jail to free his companion Susanna Ronconi and three other female political prisoners. Riccardo Scamarcio stars in film and Giovanna Mezzogiorno plays Ronconi.
La Prima Linea is being produced by Lucky Red and received €500,000 in financing from the Ministry of Culture after being blocked by Minister of Culture Sandro Bondi, who opposed the state giving money to a film on terrorism without the consensus of the victims’ relatives.
Also funded by Eurimages, the film is co-produced by Luc and Jean Pierre Dardenne. "We really loved the script. Segio’s confession, free of tricks or narcissism, really moved us, but it was meeting Renato De Maria that truly convinced me,” said Jean Pierre Dardenne. “For the first time, a recent period of European history will be seen and presented from the point of view of an old terrorist, who chose to look at those years without self-righteousness, carrying the weight of each of his victims."
(Translated from Italian)
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