This documentary was distilled from a 3 1/2-hour television film Nessuno o Tutti, to make the point that many inmates now in mental hospitals could be released without harm to society, and to their advantage. Both patients — chosen for their ability to talk before a camera — and sponsors in the community at large are interviewed to promote the concept of the patients’ re-integration into the outside world. Three men (Paolo, Angelo, and Marco — a mentally handicapped youth) talk to the interviewers about their own perspectives, and while the success of the mentally handicapped working at one plant is illustrated, the implied excesses of hospitals run by the Catholic Church are also discussed. Filming was not allowed inside those institutions. —Fandango
Born in Piacenza in 1939 from a family of the upper middle-class, he attended the Liceo of the Barnabite Fathers; in 1959 he abandoned his studies in philosophy at the Catholic University in Milan and enrolled at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (The National Film School in Rom). Then, in London, he followed courses in cinema at the Slade School of Fine Arts, graduating with a thesis on Antonioni and Bresson. He made his debut in full-length films with Fist in His Pocket (I pugni in tasca) (1965), considered one of the best first works in the history of the Italian cinema. In this great film, the rebellious tendency of the young is skilfully expressed in terms of revolt against family and normality, through the story of a young man who decides to exterminate two members of his own family. His next film, China is Near (La Cina è vicina) (1967), marked a turn towards comedy, in the clash between bourgeois hypocrisy and the vain ambition of the fake revolutionaries… read more
Silvano Agosti (Brescia, 1938) enrolled in 1960 at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome; his graduation film in 1962 was entitled La veglia. In 1963 he went to Moscow to specialize in editing and to study the work of Ejzens tejn. In 1967 Agosti debuted with the full-length film Il giardino delle delizie, from which the censors cut 28 minutes. After numerous “militant” documentaries, Agosti founded 11 Marzo Cinematografica, a cooperative which has produced all his films. From 1976 to 1978 he taught editing at the Centro Sperimentale. His movie-theater Azzurro Scipioni, in the Prati district, became a point of reference for art films. In 1983 he finished D’amore si vive, a film which focuses on tenderness, sensuality and love, which was shot in Parma over a two year time span. In 1984 he published the novel L’uomo proiettile. This book was followed by Uova di garofano, Il giudice, La ragion pura, La vittima. —Torino Film Festival
Sandro Petraglia (born 19 April 1947 in Rome, Italy) is an author and screenwriter. He has over 40 writing credits to his name, most famously the 400-minute epic La Meglio Gioventù. —Wikiepdia
