Film Clip: CORPO DI REATO (2024)

Filmmakers statement:

CORPO DI REATO (Body of Evidence) is a short documentary that investigates a case of censorship and violence that took place in Italy in 1981, targeting the film A.A.A. Offresi.

Driven by the urgency of questioning a fractured relationship with a fragmented past, our collective—four filmmakers and a historian—is looking into this forgotten event, creating a dialogue between past and present. This process involved consulting archival materials that allowed us to reconstruct an otherwise incomplete story. Piece by piece, we are creating a framework within which to pick up the threads of this overlooked troubled story.

With this short film, we have explored both the theme of censorship and the issue of sex work—an enduringly complex and divisive subject, both in the public sphere and within feminist discourse.

With Body of Evidence, we envisioned a different trajectory, striving to reclaim A.A.A. Offresi through language. This brief exercise is part of a broader research perspective that has engaged our collective for over three years. Ultimately, our goal is to develop a feature-length project that delves into the multiple issues surrounding the censored film.

This hacking the past game fits within our research perspective. We started by looking for the lost film to delve deeper now into some of the conflictive issues raised by this story, using investigative research and documentary theater as means to question reality.

To the film clip.

The short film CORPO DI REATO (Body of Evidence, 2024) by the Italian feminist collective “Collettiva,” (Marta Basso, Sara Cecconi, Carlotta Cosmai, and Alice Malingri) was first screened on September 23, 2024 within a two-part program at Arsenal Cinema focusing on Feminist Film Practices and the Legal Framework of Moving Images. The screening was accompanied by a discussion with Annamaria Licciardello (curator, historian, archivist), whose text is now available here on Rosa Mercedes 08.