Following on from The Lamb [+lire aussi :
critique
fiche film], which earned its protagonist Nora Stassi the Italian Golden Globe for Best Young Newcomer in 2021, Mario Piredda has returned to Sardinia for his second feature film, the road movie Làstima, once again placing focus on the region of his birth. Filming on this Italian-Swiss co-production unfolded over six weeks between 15 September and 25 October in Cagliari and Sassari, and in various inland villages running alongside the famous Highway 131.

The cast of this movie is led by two foreign women, characters living on the fringes of society but united in their dogged fight against their destiny, played by Romanian actress Olimpia Melinte (nominated three times for her country’s Gopo Awards, this year via The Moromete Family: Father and Son [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film], and also for a Spanish Goya thanks to Cannibal [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Manuel Martín Cuenca
fiche film]) and, in her first screen appearance, the young non-professional actress of Nigerian origins Cynthia Atekia. They’re flanked by a mixed cast of professional and non-professional actors, and notably returning talent Nora Stassi, Italian-Romanian stand-up comedian Tiberiu Cosmin Stavar, Fulvio Accogli, Italian-Nigerian writer Sabrina Efionay appearing in a cameo role, and two new faces unearthed in a local street-casting session, Raffaele Puglia and Sandro Ullasci.

According to the synopsis for Làstima (which means “sin” or “shame” in the Sardinian dialect), “Vera, a forty-year-old woman of Romanian origin, suddenly finds herself out of work and having to drive an incredibly young Nigerian girl called Kali across sun-scorched Sardinia: a straightforward ‘task’ turns into a life-long journey”. Piredda describes his film as “a modern-day story where no-one wins or loses: the characters put themselves in each other’s shoes.  […]. The film unfolds between two cities and their respective peripheries, in the countryside of my homeland, Sardinia, where Sardinians and children of Sardinians have to open themselves up to others. That’s the way we are: we hide our feelings and put on a show of strength because we don’t like letting people in too soon, but then, once we’ve calmed down, we open up our hearts. Vera and Kali represent “the other.” Two women who are poles apart and who meet by chance, by way of one of the many violent and vulgar men they’ve met in their lives. It’s because of or thanks to him that they begin their roaming journey: on trains, in coaches and makeshift cars, and crossing the island on foot, an island which keeps people within its confines, especially those who have only just arrived and who see it as a foreign land”.

The film was produced by Ivan Olgiati and Chiara Galloni on behalf of Articolture and by Mark Olexa for Swiss firm DOK Mobile, alongside RSI Radiotelevisione Svizzera, in collaboration with Romania’s Tangaj Productions via Anamaria Antoci, Anda Ionescu and Ana Voicu, and with support from Creative MEDIA Europe, the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Swiss Federal Bureau, the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, the Sardegna Film Commission and Cinéforom.