The Man Who Will Come

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The Man Who Will Come (Italian: L'uomo che verrà) is a film of 2009 directed by Giorgio Diritti; was released in Italian cinemas on January 22 2010. In the original version the film is in Bolognese dialect with subtitles in Italian.

The film was presented in competition at the , where it won the audience's Marc'Aurelio d'Oro for best film and the Grand Jury Prize Marc'Aurelio d'Argento. It garnered sixteen nominations for , winning three awards, including one for . Has received seven nominations for , winning three of them.

Plot[]

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In the winter between 1943 and 1944 on the Apennines, eight-year-old Martina lives with her parents and a large peasant family, who toil every day to survive. Since the death of her younger brother Martina has stopped talking, and this makes her the object of ridicule by her peers, however her gaze on the world around her is very profound. The World War II also arrives on its snow-covered hills, with the increasingly intrusive presence of German soldiers and squads of partisans. Lena, the child's mother, becomes pregnant again and Martina carefully follows the nine months of gestation, while the complex events of the war intersect with the everyday life of the peasant: the laundry, the woven baskets in the stable, the slaughter of the pig, the flirtations of young people, the First communion.

Martina's little brother is born at home at the end of September 1944. At daybreak the SS, supported by units of soldiers of the fascist army, arrive on the hills Bolognesi, carrying out a ferocious roundup, which will be remembered as the "Marzabotto massacre": old people, women and children are murdered after being collected in cemeteries, churches and farmhouses. Martina, who had managed to escape, is discovered and locked up in the small church of Cerpiano together with dozens of other people and, after closing the doors, the soldiers carry out a massacre. Martina is miraculously unharmed and returns home, finding only empty rooms and silence: she takes the basket with her little brother, who she had hidden inside a refuge in the woods before being found, and takes refuge in the rectory of Don Fornasini, one of the parish priests of the area, and, after the massacre is complete, she returns to the family cottage, where she takes care of her little brother by singing a lullaby for him, regaining her use of the word.

Production[]

Set in 1944, it recounts the events preceding the Marzabotto massacre seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old girl. The film was shot in Radicondoli, in the province of Siena, and in Monte San Pietro, in the province of Bologna, with a budget of 3 million euros^[1] and with the support of Rai Cinema and the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.

Reality and fiction[]

The director studied extensively before making the film, especially at the Parri Institute (Institute for the history and memories of the 20th century, Bologna). Even the peasant life of those years is resumed with realism and richness of detail. In the credits it is stated that the characters and the events of the film are the result of fiction, while the historical background (the massacre of Monte Sole, better known as the massacre of Marzabotto) is real. Even some characters featured in the film actually existed:

• don Giovanni Fornasini, a young parson anti-fascist;
• don , who was killed in front of the altar of the church of Casaglia: the pyx he was holding in his hand at the time of the killing is still preserved, and it still has the bullet stuck on its side;
• Sister Antonietta Benni, Ursuline, kindergarten teacher (in the film however, her name is not mentioned); in reality, she is one of the three survivors of the Cerpiano massacre;
• the partisan "", of the brigade Stella Rossa;
• the crippled woman killed in the church because she could not obey the German soldiers who had ordered her to leave the holy place immediately;
• the group of eighty-four people who were actually killed with machine guns in the Casaglia cemetery;
• the group of about seventy people who was actually killed inside the church of Cerpiano with the launch of hand grenades.

Awards[]

• David di Donatello 2010
  • Best Film
  • Best Producer
  • Best Sound

References[]

External links[]

• The Man Who Will Come at IMDb