The Open Couple

A film on the come back of exorcism in the contemporary world. Each year a growing number of people call their sense of unease “possession.” The Church answers to this spiritual emergency nominating an increasing number of exorcist priests and organizing training courses. Father Cataldo is one of the most sought-after exorcists in Sicily and elsewhere; he is famous for his tireless fighting spirit. Every Tuesday Gloria, Enrico, Anna, and Giulia, along with many others, attend Father Cataldo’s mass for deliverance, trying to find a cure for a sense of discomfort that has no answer nor a name. Whether believers or not, how far are we prepared to go to get recognition for our own disease? What are we prepared to do to be delivered from it, here and now?

In the heart of Rome, face to Saint Peter’s, stands a Palace. The owner, like a renaissance patron, has once been offering shelter to a bizarre group of friends, embracing their joyfully ambitious causes. The perfect hideout from where to pursue the most aleatory artistic projects, far from the hassles of life. Now in their 50s’, they are suddenly reunited by the premature death of their charismatic leader, Mauro. He left something tangible to the group of friends: hours of footage where he directed them in the most diverse roles, a supposed masterpiece that was never finished, and now a a mirror reflecting images from the past. The mourning, in the shudder of a moment, shakes the numbed spirits, leading them into a radical confrontation with their future.

In the southern Italian city of Bari, desperate times call for desperate—and downright ridiculous—measures. After waiting for years to be assigned social housing, people become prisoners in their homes for fear of losing the roof over their heads.