Projects
A Perfect Family
Théo is six when he leaves Giudecca prison, with a world to discover, and a father he doesn’t know.
In Italy, in 2011, a new law set the legal limit to six years for a mother to be allowed to keep her child with her in prison. Théo has spent each and every day of his life in seclusion with his mother Léa inside Giudecca prison in Venice. Lea is in jail because an act of eco-activism which she led, cost a man his life. Now Théo is turning six and has to leave the penitentiary. Léa decides to entrust Théo to his father Marco. She blacklisted Marco when he left the eco warriors group before the attack and has since prevented him from seeing their son. Leaving Venice and traveling to Brittany where Marco lives, is a fascinating and frightening journey for Théo. He discovers a world outside the prison, full of charm and cruelty. He faces the harshness of being apart from his mother, with whom he naturally has a very symbiotic relationship, and learns new hard truths about her. Slowly Théo gets to know his father, who has also suffered, and who is sincerely intent on gaining Théo’s trust and redeeming himself with Lea. After a month of probation, a judge will make a final decision about legal guardianship. As Marco, Léa and Théo wait for the sentence, Léa is given special permission to leave, and they share an afternoon on a beach. From afar, they look like a perfect family.
During the time I spent in prison as a volunteer I was acutely aware of the presence of a threshold: a specific place and time where one can perceive a clear transition between outside and inside. I wondered how the existence of this threshold between two such clearly separated dimensions would be perceived by a six-year-old child. More specifically, I wanted to explore the transition from a mother, Théo has spent every day of his life with, to a father he barely knows. A Perfect Family is a story about discoveries. Théo’s discovery above all, a sensorial and deeply emotional one, through different countries, landscapes, and situations. But also, the discoveries of Léa and Marco, who have the opportunity to reinvent themselves and their roles. They have certainly failed, as a couple, as parents and as activists. They now have a chance at reconciliation and maybe the possibility of being the atypical, yet good, family Théo is asking them to be.
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