After The Interval [+lee también:
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entrevista: Leonardo Di Costanzo
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entrevista: Leonardo Di Costanzo
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entrevista: Jean Bréhat
entrevista: Rachid Bouchareb
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entrevista: Arnaud Desplechin
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entrevista: Mario Martone
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The screenplay was penned by Di Costanzo himself, alongside Bruno Oliviero and Valia Santella. Elisa is loosely based on studies by and conversations between criminologists Adolfo Ceretti and Lorenzo Natali appearing in the essay Io volevo ucciderla. Thirty-five-year-old Elisa has been in prison for ten years, convicted for having killed her older sister and burnt her body for no apparent reason. She claims to remember little to nothing about her crime, as if she’d built up a wall of silence between her and her past. But when she decides to meet criminologist Alaoui and take part in his research, embarking on a tense and inexorable exchange, her memories begin to take shape and, amidst the pain of fully accepting her culpability, Elisa finds she might be able to take the first step towards potential redemption.

“This film was born out of a line of thought initiated in The Inner Cage and which we’ve pushed in a more intimate and disconcerting direction: not focusing on the crime itself but on the inner journey of the person who committed it”, Di Costanzo explains. “In Elisa, I tried to convey the complexity of a person who’s capable of pain, coldness and manipulation, but who ultimately has a very human need to be heard. The aim is for the film to ask more questions than it answers and to create that same ethical and emotional confusion which guided my approach during the writing and directing process”.

Elisa‘s photography comes courtesy of Luca Bigazzi (awarded 7 David di Donatello trophies, not least for The Great Beauty [+lee también:
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entrevista: Paolo Sorrentino
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World sales are entrusted to RAI Cinema International Distribution while distribution in Italy falls to 01 Distribution.