The prison in Siena

From theater and cinema an opportunity for redemption for those who live in prison

Eighty-four suicides in prison is the sad record with which last year ended. The worst data since 2000, the first year in which the surveys began. An emergency within the chronic emergency that distinguishes the Italian prison system. Too often the world behind bars is told only for negative situations, and does not garner the general interest of readers. But if the theme of "prison" does not resonate in the media, approvals take off in the cinema. The narrative set inside prisons (especially American ones) reflects a little-known world and fascinates.

There have been TV series that have had very high ratings, such as the famous Prison Break from which you can breathe the air that blows in American prisons, the series has offered a whole new perspective on justice over the years. The most loved prison drama of recent years was an all-female TV series set in Litchfield penitentiary. The series gave an insight into why inmates are in jail. Through flashbacks it also touches on rather serious issues - fallacious justice, abuse of power, racism - which are then taken up again in the course of the main story. Especially the last few seasons, which touch the drama very closely, manage to sensitize the viewer towards women who cannot be judged only for their mistakes. From America to Italy. The interest in cinema behind bars does not diminish. It offers an interesting and engaging cross-section of Grazie Ragazzi in which the theater inside the cinema represents a way of redemption and offers a real representation of the dynamics that are experienced inside prisons.

Or again Aria firm, delicate and extraordinary, dramatic but somehow also prophetic. Directed by Leonardo di Costanzo, it is set in a decommissioned prison, where only a few agents and very few inmates remain. The small group of prisoners waits to be transferred to a new prison, but day after day the wait leads them to give less and less importance to the rules, which seem to have no more value. The prisoners find themselves forming a new community, albeit a very fragile one. Screened in the Secondigliano prison, in front of an audience of prisoners and students, and with the director, it created the conditions for an open dialogue, where one prisoner remarked: «Prison was born as a place of division and polarization, but it can become garrison of humanity just like it happens in the film, and here today with all of us». Who knows, cinema will fail where politics is failing.

Chiara Genesio

NP Febbraio 2023