FRIDAY 21 NOV – H 20:30 – ROOM 2
Meeting with SAVERIO COSTANZO

PRIVATE
ITALY – 2004 – color – 90’

Direction: Saverio Costanzo
Screenplay: Saverio Costanzo, Sayed Qashua, Alessio Cremonini, Camilla Costanzo
Cinematography: Gigi Martinucci
Editing: Francesca Calvelli
Production design: Ludovica Amati, Einat Fadida
Music: Alter Ego
Costumes: Ludovica Amati, Einat Fadida
Cast: Mohammad Bakri (Mohammad B.), Lior Miller (commander Ofer), Areen Omari (Samiah B.), Hend Ayoub (Mariam B.), Tomer Russo (soldier Eial), Sahar Lachmy (soldier Ariel), Marco Alsaying (Jamal B.), Sarah Hamzeh (Nada B.), Amir Hasayen (Yousef B.), Niv Shafir (soldier Dan), Karem Emad Hassan Aly (Karem B.)
Producer: Mario Gianani
Production: OffSide, Istituto Luce, Rai Cinema, Cydonia
Distribution: Istituto Luce

Synopsis
Private is based on a true story, which tells of a forced cohabitation between Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian family. The film does not concentrate on the public or political side of the story, but rather its exact opposite — the private, intimate side of everyday life. The protagonists are the B. family, whose house is located halfway between the Israeli settlements and an Arab village. They are relatively well-off and educated. Mohammad, the father, is the principal of a secondary school. After a firefight, the Israeli army occupies the second floor of the house for security reasons and demands the family to leave. Mohammad refuses to go, determined not to abandon his home, which marks the boundary of his dignity. To lose it would mean surrendering himself and his family to the hatred of the Israelis forever.

critical note
“A successful debut for Saverio Costanzo, who contradicts the official policy of the usual establishment. A former documentary filmmaker, he explores the daily violence and humiliation of the Arab-Israeli conflict with a lucid, Rossellini-like touch, without moralizing but rather unifying everyone in the role of victims. (…) A truly psychoanalytical film in the way Palestinian and Jewish actors subjected themselves to a kind of autogenic training to relive an increasingly difficult reality.”
(Maurizio Porro, Il Corriere della Sera, 22 January 2005)