I’m Not Scared

Original title: Io non ho paura

2003

Director: Gabriele Salvatores

Scriptwriters: Niccolò Ammaniti, Francesca Marciano (from the novel of the same name by Niccolò Ammaniti)

Cast: Giuseppe Cristiano, Dino Abbrescia, Diego Abatantuono, Mattia Di Pierro

Produced by: Cattleya, Medusa Film, Colorado Film, Alquimia Cinema, The Producers Films

108’, col.

Italy/Spain/UK

Original Italian version, 35mm copy supplied by Cinecittà Digital Factory

The film tells the story of the empathic identification of Michele (the lead role) with Filippo (a boy of his own age who is kidnapped and imprisoned). In the final scene the two come to substitute one another, not simply empathically but in reality, which leads to their deliverance. The theme of Enchanted Gardens is represented by the natural setting that provides the backdrop to the film. It is a paradisiacal place that contrasts with the criminal acts of its occupants. The film succeeds in making its audience relive their personal pre-adolescent experiences, a period when maturity and innocence are still both very close at hand. The nursery rhyme that Michele often recites generates an interior rhythm that, through the boy’s voice alone, brings us empathically close to his childhood world, his fears and his attempts at exorcizing them through the recitation of nursery rhymes and lullabies.