Giorno per giorno disperatamente

Dario is a mentally ill young boy, who’s a patient of a hospital from which his mother Tilde makes him leave, to be seen by a Swedish specialist. The obsessive love of the woman towards Dario makes her disregard her other son, Gabriele. The boy, exhausted by the conflict between brotherly love and the desire of having his own life, spent years taking care of his brother, being his healthcare assistant, denying his hopes and dreams. The father of the two, Pietro, is a modest tailor, who goes through sacrifices and humiliation in order to earn the money he needs to pay for Dario’s assistance. One day Gabriele sees that his brother has taken a knife. He doesn’t say anything, almost hoping he would kill himself. But when, during one of his crisis, he barricades in his room, Gabriele kicks the door and takes the knife from his brother’s hands. Their mother sees them fighting and thinks that Gabriele wants to kill Dario, so she sends him away. Gabriele spends the night at Marcella’s, a girl he is in love with. The morning after, when he calls his mother, he realises that something terrible is happening. He stops Dario just in time and prevents him from killing their mum. But Tilde’s life will soon be taken by a heart attack.
Traduzione in inglese Francesca Sala – English translation Francesca Sala

I like the stories that have their roots in tradition, I have a lot in mind, each of them was born by people I met, by things I saw. The story that I am shooting now, for example, developed in front of my eyes, in the railwaymen barracks where I used to live: my father was a railway worker. One of those buildings closed around a courtyard, huge but gloomy, with many windows that pour in that yard all the problems of the people who live around there: births, deaths, weddings and most of all, fights and bursts of life. In that courtyard, there was a window with big bars and behind them there was the nut and he would always scream. I used to spy, curious and anxious, the moves of that family, because I wanted to know what was there apart from the mad man, what there was before and I would try to guess what there would have been later; for many years I saw parts of this story in front of my eyes and I think that the title I gave to the film is the summary of what I felt, because I saw everything going the same way, restless, with no solution, day after day, desperately. (...)
The book “Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl: The True Story of "Renee"” was very useful, written by a woman who was cured from schizophrenia by a Swiss doctor who has taken care of her for many years. It says, among other things, that the patients are always aware, they would like to communicate with others, sometimes even explain what is troubling them, but they can’t. From their lips comes only an incomprehensible sound or a simple word with no reason that maybe, for their far mental association, corresponds to what they would like to say. It is like being covered by a layer of rubber; it is like dreaming of driving, of leaving, but you can’t do it; it is one of the worse pains that a human being can suffer.

Why did I choose such a strong topic for my first work Giorno per giorno disperatamente? My topics, as a screenwriter as well, have always been a little challenging, and family has always been the main one. Here, in Giorno per giorno... I wanted to deal with one of the most tragic problems, the worst thing for a family: having a mentally ill person at home. So it is not, as it was written, the story of a schizophrenic boy, but of the people who live around him, the reflection of his disgrace on the faces of his relatives. But it is also a note to certain hospital systems that there are in some Italian mental institutions: schizophrenia is not cured because of a lack of workers; where there are no nurses, they use some sedatives and give them a toy to play with, in order to keep them calm. (...)
My film is not going to make money, but I am happy I made it. I didn’t want to bother about sales, I tried to make an honest film, honestly demanding.

Traduzione in inglese Francesca Sala – English translation Francesca Sala

Director: Alfredo Giannetti.
Aiuto regia: Nino Zanchin.
Soggetto e sceneggiatura: Claudio Giannetti, Guido De Biase.
Director of photography: Ajace Parolin.
Art director: Carlo Egidi, Dario Micheli.
Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni.
Music: Carlo Rustichelli.
Cast and characters: Tomas Milian (Dario), Nino Castelnuovo (Gabriele), Madeleine Robinson (Tilde), Tino Carraro (Pietro), Franca Bettoia (Marcella), Riccardo Garrone (Riccardo), Isa Crescenzi (Isa), Mario Scaccia (Lello).
Production company: Franco Cristaldi per la Titanus Vides.
Director of Production: Oscar Brazzi.
Italian distribution: Titanus.