Ten years ago I developed the first project on children in prison without guilt. I read an article which said Teresa, 17 months, who lived with his mother, convicted of drug trafficking, under "maximum security" Rebibbia. The piece was accompanied by photos. Image in particular struck me: a little girl walking down the corridor of the institution of punishment, mimicking the typical "walking" of the held. Teresa jelly called "food" and was learning to spell, changing them as do all children, his first words: "air", "cell," "visit," agent "open."
I still have that paper, now yellowed and a bit 'faded. Since then I never stopped to read up on this reality. I have read research, surveys, studies, and I have come across small ex-prisoners, I have seen videos and reports on the subject; I have been following developments institutional approval and entry into force of Law No Finocchiaro 40 8 March 2001, the difficulties of practical application of alternative measures for all prisoners (postponement of punishment, house arrest), the succession of the various drafts of proposed amendments to the Act, the collection of signatures to replace the detention of mothers and children in prison with the host family homes in a surveillance alleviated ... Basically everything that you tried to do, without being able to prevent that, even at the end of this year, at least 70 children living with mothers in prison inmates Italian .
Nor have I ever abandoned the intention to try to visually represent a small, modest slice of injustice so great, but so complex to unravel and perhaps even to tell. I've often, when I spoke of the project, objected to feel that a hundred children in detention are too few compared to all those who suffer from hunger, are being raped, exploited, used to make war, killed. I can not deny this fact terrible, but I think that will remain in prison until only one child, worth even telling his story.
Contucci Anna Orlandi, who worked with UNICEF, addresses the problem of children being held during the first three years of life, the most precious of all, why are those in which form the basis for the future development of personality. In his study states that if, in a delicate phase, is limited to the desire to discover, curiosity, the search expression, you can cause serious irreversible damage that will shape their adult life. It is not true that children do not receive inmates the limited around the world who: show, in fact, a common tendency to prefer isolation from environmental stimuli and a constant feeling of isolation, a sign of how difficult and emotional they are affective suffering. The pathological effects are very pronounced by restlessness, frequent and unexplained crying spells, intolerance to noise and sounds, serious disturbances of sleep, food, and word ...
spent the first years of living in cramped conditions, in a climate of permanent tension and conflict arising from the coexistence between women of different origins and cultures, environmental and hygiene conditions are not always optimal, rhythms and special rules of life, without any contact with nature, outside of a normal family environment, is so damaging to the 'psycho-physical balance and the development of affective personality, which is unlikely bond with the jail break it into adulthood. But no matter how malicious, nothing is more devastating than the sudden detachment from the mother who often has established an exclusive relationship with his son and overprotective. The law requires that the child, even if the mother is in prison, is released on the day of his third birthday. Since then, the small, recent studies confirm this, he begins to feel responsible for that abandonment of a sudden without understanding what crime to be punished. An inmate of St. Victor said that when his son, the third birthday, saw her put his clothes in a suitcase, has pleaded desperately "Do not send me away!" Later, during one of the first interview, asked her: "Why is the house where I am now has no bars?" A U.S. study confirms that a child separated from an imprisoned parent has five times more likely to be put in great conflict with the law.
On the other hand the psychological damage that comes from separation, followed by other injuries: a visit to his mother in prison will be accompanied by expectations every time, travel, transhipment from one means another, queues, searches for an interview than an hour, a thousand voices outside, in a squalid environment where the child will eventually succumb to the same rules as adults.
"A thousand days of Vito" is intended to signal reconstructing this complex reality, between documentary and fiction, the day of a child who has experienced the tragic experience of detention without guilt, at times before his return to prison to visit his mother still owned. The narrative, deliberately without dialogue, it's all focused on the description of the fluctuating moods of Vito and his personal interaction with the surrounding world, closely intertwined with a hard experience that faces persistent in his particular universe in children.
