What happened to Beniamino Zuncheddu in Sardinia 35 years ago is considered the longest wrongful conviction in recent Italian history. In his debut fiction feature film Zustìssia (“justice” in Sardinian), which is released in Italian cinemas from 15 October by PiperFilm, Francesco Piras takes a highly empathic approach to revisit the case of the former shepherd (played by Fabrizio Ferracane) who’s now 62 and who was sentenced to life imprisonment for a triple murder committed in 1991 in Sinnai, southern Sardinia. His innocence was only recognised with an acquittal in 2024, after more than thirty years spent in prison, thanks to the efforts of a young lawyer called Mauro Trogu, who’s played by Michele Riondino in the present film. Zustìssia is based on Trogu and Zuncheddu’s book, Io sono innocente, which co-screenwriter Lisa Nur Sultan (who shares writing credits with Niccolò Gentili) stumbled upon a few years ago.

The film opens with Zuncheddu’s own voiceover, introducing himself as a “shepherd servant” of sheep and goats, a figure which seems confined to the times of Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s Padre padrone but which actually still endures today and which has, for centuries, denoted a worker who doesn’t have the capital to own their own flock and who subsequently tends animals on behalf of another shepherd. On this particular night, an ambush takes place in one family’s sheepfold: three people are killed, while, miraculously, a fourth, Antonio Mura (Luciano Curreli), survives the massacre. This sole witness identifies young Zuncheddu as the gunman. On the evening of 28 February 1991, 26-year-old Beniamino is taken in by the police and transferred to Buoncammino prison after a brief interrogation. But Beniamino is innocent and what follows is nothing short of a nightmare. Within a year, his life sentence is confirmed, and he resigns himself to spending the rest of his days behind bars.

Twenty-five years later, Beniamino’s family are still fighting for his freedom. Young lawyer, Mauro Trogu, takes an interest in the case, working pro bono, poring over the files with the help of a criminologist colleague and uncovering an investigation conducted on an alarmingly superficial level. Rather than an act of revenge on account of trespassing livestock, he realises that the witness had been led by a police official. and he uncovers an important detail: a few weeks before the massacre, a local entrepreneur had briefly been “express”-kidnapped. With the help of the new public prosecutor, Trogu gathers fresh evidence pointing to Beniamino’s arrest being tied to the network of collaborators and informants linked to a magistrate who was closing a number of kidnapping cases in the region with no regard for the innocent people who were ending up in prison after being implicated by his confidants.

Trogu finally secures a review of the trial, but the courts of Rome postpone and drag it out for years. It’s a race against time and Beniamino - who has always held onto hope, maintaining his innocence and never accepting compromise - starts to lose faith, as he sees all his cellmates regaining their freedom. Fabrizio Ferracane’s magnificent, understated performance conveys the full weight of this injustice, which was a veritable abduction carried out by the authorities which lasted decades. Francesco Piras’s sleek and stripped back film direction never veers from socially engaged cinéma verité, but it’s also as tight as a legal thriller. The only concession to a more symbolic approach is the scene - shot superbly by cinematographer Sandro Chessa – set during the “Is Cerbus” carnival rite: the deer hunt through the streets of Sinnai and the resulting slaughter. In this sense, the director links a rite rooted in time to a society which is still tied to the infamous “Barbagia code” which caused the protagonist’s downfall.

Zustìssia was produced by Palomar in league with PiperFilm, in collaboration with Netflix and Rai Cinema.