The Catholic school: the 2016 Strega Prize becomes a film

The Catholic school of Edoardo Albinati won the Premio Strega in 2016 and on 7 October it will be released in cinemas in an already promising film adaptation

It was presented in the cinema of Venezia 2021 out of competition. The Catholic school reconstructs the life of the boys of the crime of the Circeo.

The plot | The Catholic school: the 2016 Strega Prize becomes a film

We are over the years seventy a Roma. In a private school, one of the most renowned, it seems nothing bad can happen. Yet, for unknown reasons, three alumni become protagonists of one of the greatest massacres in Italian history.

The film | The Catholic school: the 2016 Strega Prize becomes a film

The film follows in the footsteps of the novel, written by one of the three killers’ classmates, and narrates the preliminaries of the crime.

It is an honest but not morbid film, also respectful towards the families of the victims, which analyzes the male gender.

The told youth comes from violence daily linked to rich families, educated but distracted. Families used to fill gaps with money, to solve problems by hiding them, linked to the object and value rather than feelings. Families not used to showing affection, perhaps because you are always able to get any without any problem.

The children of these generations cannot divide good from evil because they were not polite, because they have been used to obtaining everything without any difficulty and, when they are deprived of something, they do not hesitate to act in order to have it. Everything is due to them but life cannot be bought with money.

The boys are painted with a moral ambiguity caused by impunity, non-fulfillment and non-observance of the rules protagonists of their lives, in what was a superficial respectability.

The cast | The Catholic school: the 2016 Strega Prize becomes a film

The cast is full of well-known actors, more or less established: Benedetta Porcaroli, Riccardo Scamarcio, Valentina Cervi, Valeria Golino, Luca Vergoni, Francesco Cavallo and Giulio Pranno.

The case

The Circeo crime occurred in San Felice a Circeo between 29 and 30 September 1975. Gianni Guido, Angelo Izzo and Andrea Ghira they kidnapped, raped and tortured two young girls Donatella Colasanti and Rosaria Lopez.

The three managers came from a rich family while the two girls came from families residing in the Montagnola district of Rome. They met two of the boys a few days before the kidnapping and were lured by deception to another appointment that will lead them to suffer torture and violence for more than a day and a night.

Rosaria was then drowned in the bath tub. Donatella survived a strangulation but in trying to call and ask for help she was hit with a bar and pretended to be dead.

They were locked up in the trunk of a car and, at the right moment, Donatella, wounded but believed dead, managed to get noticed and ask for help, saving herself.

Author

The author of the novel is Edoardo Albinati, born in Rome in 1956. He attended the Liceo classico San Leone Magno, where the story is set and was even a classmate of one of the killers.

He is a translator, screenwriter and writer, winner of the 2016 Strega Prize.