La casa del drago

(The dragon’s house)

Italy – 2005 – col. – 35′ – 1.37- DV/super 8 – Italian with French subtitles
directed by Michele Gurrieri, Gigi Giustiniani, Elisa Maranzana, Eleonora Galli
produced by the Scuola Civica di Cinema di Milano

La Casa del drago is a centre attached to the Psychiatric Hospital for criminals in Montelupo Fiorentino, near Florence. The facility hosts are mentally ill people who have committed crimes. Some of them, subject to judicial control, may leave the hospital for a few hours each day. They take advantage of this time to go to La Casa del drago centre, where educators set up writing, painting and sculpture workshops, during which patients enjoy a space of freedom: freedom of expression, movement and interaction with other patients and educators, in the absence of guards and psychiatrists. Here, outside the walls that lock them up, their imagination runs free, the sick are unleashed and the film tries to fly away with them.

Filmmaker Festival 2005 (Milan), Roma DOCFEST 2006