Z.O.

In the 1990s, a child grows up surrounded by deep secrets. The men in his family, including his father, die too young, but he is not yet able to understand why. When he discovers that his last name is a well-known name in the city, he feels as if he is seeing his own life reflected in the gangster and horror films he loves, a mirror of the violence that has changed his life.

Anna and Lucia, two women in their twenties, one Italian and one of Nigerian origin, take turns caring for Maria, a bedridden old lady living in a large, antiquated and silent house. Anna looks after Maria during the day, while Lucia has the night shift: the change of shift is the only moment at which the two young women meet, but in that short span of time the differences between them flare up every day, in a conflict in which each asserts—one at the expense of the other—her own position in the world.

You cannot choose your parents or the place where you are born. These are the thoughts of a daughter who cannot rebel. As a little girl, she spent a lot of time with her mother, a fervent Catholic woman. She would have rather spent time with her father, but he was busy hiding an extra-marital affair everyone knew but kept quiet about. Today, time goes by slowly inside and outside their home. Family problems are silenced, the Campania region suburbs lie on the background.

Between coming and going time feels leaden – a half-life in the light and dark contrasts of a linocut. The narrating voice’s mother cares for seniors in their homes for five euros an hour. At their bedsides the ticking clock counts down the working day, caught between the frightening sounds of the heavy breathing that comes with impending death and the roar of promises made by television. The dying are mother’s livelihood.

Until she was 16, filmmaker Chiara Marotta lived in a Christian community where everything revolved around prayer and reflection. Life was bound by regularity and rules that kept contact with the outside world to a minimum. The rebellious Marotta couldn’t stand it, but when she left, her grandmother, mother, and sister stayed behind.