Always being fascinated by my roots, I’ve spent 8 years researching and interviewing people of my land, the Langhe. These hills, renowned worldwide for their winemakers, were in the past a place of hunger, poverty, dust, gambling, suicides, and a strong tradition of antifascism. That research turned into my first feature documentary and novel: A Tale of the Hills. But those characters could easily belong to a spaghetti western.
Since in Piemonte we don’t eat spaghetti, but tajarin, this is the first film of a new genre: the Tajarin Western. Think of Amarcord, but with machine guns, or Taxi Driver in the ‘30s, without the taxi.
This story is about the precise moment in life when the compromises you are able to make become too heavy, and the rage you’ve tamed inside yourself for years gets suddenly unleashed, without control. When someone falls into this condition, there’s no escape, and the people around have to make a choice: watch you die alone, or join your battle.
This film is about all those who fight for their ideals against any form of oppression, and live their life free, building a future for people they’ll never meet, who will learn their names through a story like this one.