Our Father

Rome, 1976. Ten year old Valerio wakes one morning to gunfire and sees his father shot down in front of the house. The father survives, but from then on the house is a different place: protection, silence, and an event nobody speaks about. That summer Valerio makes friends with an older boy called Christian. Where Christian comes from and why he appears is unclear. Claudio Noce writes and directs. Pierfrancesco Favino plays the father and Barbara Ronchi the mother; Mattia Garaci plays Valerio. The story comes from the director's own life. Claudio Noce's father Alfonso Noce was deputy police chief in Rome at the time and was attacked by the Armed Proletarian Nuclei on 14 December 1976. What interests the film is the child, not the terrorism. The political context is barely explained; the events exist only as far as a boy can see and fail to make sense of them. Pierfrancesco Favino won the Volpi Cup for best actor at the 77th Venice film festival for the part. The riskiest thing in the narrative is Christian, and the film leaves it open to the end. The image is soft and summery; the period after the violence is not shot as darkness at all, and the contrast is deliberate. Who it is for: viewers who want seventies Italy from a child's view, and followers of Favino. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, the political background is left incomplete, and the unresolved ending will not satisfy everyone.