Massimiliano Basso

In the unforgiving Wild West, a young gunslinger marked with two red crosses over his eyes undergoes a mysterious ritual under the silent watch of mounted men. As he crosses a dry riverbed, he catches a glimpse of a veiled woman and a blindfolded child waiting among the trees, unsure whether they are real or only visions. Haunted by fragments of the ritual that brought him here, he is forced to confront a single irreversible choice, one that will determine whether he completes the rite or becomes its next victim.

Vernazza, a small town in the Cinque Terre, is flooded by mass tourism every summer, making life difficult for the locals. The only way to preserve the village’s identity is through its memories, told by some of its oldest inhabitants. These memories are not necessarily positive, they recount a reality, the Second World War, which is rarely associated with such popular destinations, yet still deserves to be remembered. Although tourism is erasing the traces of Vernazza’s past, it remains the foundation of the locals’ economic survival, a compromise they have chosen to live with.