Rossella Nisio

THE PRICE FOR FIRE

“It’s past the hour and I’m waiting. The square is empty. I realise that I’m alone. Friends, comrades, they must have moved on. Yes, I guess they moved on. I bet by now they’re somewhere warm.”

The Price for Fire, poster.

Against the backdrop of a vacant old-fashioned house, two voices pursue the shadows of 1968 and of its aftermath: Drifter, brooding over the revolution that never came, and his unnamed comrade, who addresses him from the ranks of a funeral procession.

The Price for Fire, still images.

The Price for Fire is based on the events surrounding the death of M.A., a left-wing activist who, aged 28, perished in a fire at his home in the December of 1976. M, who had adhered to the workers’ movements that emerged in Italy in 1968, left behind a handful of poems, in which he entrusted his inner disillusionment to an alter-ego named “drifter”. The short film unfolds as a play for two voices meeting at the threshold between expectation and grief, and is freely inspired by the original poems written by M.

Written, directed and edited: Rossella Nisio.
With: Benjamin Akira Tallamy, Katherine Drake.
Music: Lorenzo Bassanelli.
Produced: Manic Owl Works.
Supported by: Mondriaan Fonds, Tijl Fonds.
Language: English, Italian.
Duration: 19 minutes.