The Damned

We are in Montana, in 1862, with a small unit of Union soldiers. The empty land, the horses, the camaraderie and the gunshots take us back to the territory of the Western. But there’s no clear view of the wide prairies or the great mountains on the horizon. There’s no reverse shot when the enemy strikes. Everything is a blur beyond these few men, as if a deliberate formal nearsightedness wants to make us concentrate solely on their faces, their feelings, how they learn how to live. Even when they look into the distance, trying to make sense of a meaningless war among brothers, we never see what they see. We only stand by them, guard the terrain with them and gather around the campfire with them to listen. The name of each character is not important, because what has always mattered more to Roberto Minervini is what constitutes a group, the mysterious ties that bind people together, the invisible bonds that makes a human belong to a religion, an army, a country, a way of life. His attentive gaze transfigures the Western genre and leaves us with nothing but the weight of the weather, the sound of beliefs cracking and the smell of death. It’s an origin story, but one where everything is already doomed to vanish. (Victor Guimarães) 

In the presence of Roberto Minervini and Paolo Benzi (producer).

 Roberto Minervini: THE PASSAGE (2011), LOW TIDE (2013), STOP THE POUNDING HEART (2013), THE OTHER SIDE (2015), WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE WORLD’S ON FIRE? (2018)