Gol!a

Golia was once a rugby champion and now lives with dementia. Every morning he wakes convinced he is still young and away with his team, then learns again that he is inside a nursing home and has lost all contact with his wife and children. Alessandro, another resident, is a former professor of ancient literature who cannot walk because of paraplegia. Alessandro has one ambition left: to get Golia out of the home and back to his family. In working past the defensive lines put up by the institution’s mean-spirited staff, the film says the thing it came to say: age and illness are not a valid pretext for treating a person as socially worthless. Roberto Marra and Stefano Salvatori directed this Italian production together, with Giorgio Colangeli and Mirko Frezza in the cast. It runs ninety-two minutes and dates from 2023.