The longest miscarriage of justice in recent Italian history: that of former shepherd Beniamino Zuncheddu, now 62, sentenced to life in prison for a triple homicide that occurred in Sinnai in 1991. His innocence was recognized with an acquittal only in 2024, after approximately 33 years in prison, thanks to the efforts of a young lawyer, Mauro Trogu, who, after a seven-year legal battle, succeeded in obtaining a retrial.

A story that is recounted with rigor and intensity in "Zustissia," the debut film by Francesco Piras, based on the book by Trogu and Zuncheddu, "Io sono innocente" (De Agostini Libri). In the courtroom drama, which premieres in theaters on October 8th in Sardinia and from the 15th throughout Italy with Piper Film, Fabrizio Ferracane plays the shepherd, while Michele Riondino plays the lawyer, in a cast that includes Geppi Cucciari, Paola Giannini, Jacopo Cullin, Francesco Colella, and Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu. The one who drew the most attention at the press conference in Rome was the real Zuncheddu, who has not yet received the main compensation for his wrongful imprisonment (he only received one of 30,000 euros for being locked up in small, overcrowded cells) : "I really liked the film, it moved me because it took me back in time to when they caught me. "Even though it would take many films to tell the whole story, from beginning to end," he explains. In these two years of freedom, "I'm recovering well, it's no longer like at the beginning, when I looked like a walking corpse." To cope, during the long detention, "I clung a little to faith, a little to hope, I thought a lot about the family and the country that believed in me. I told myself 'one day I'll get out of this place.'"

After 33 years in prison, "no one has ever apologized to me," he adds, also citing the support he received during the process of retrial by the Radical Party, which is now also promoting the Zuncheddu bill, to guarantee a provisional financial compensation to those acquitted at the end of a trial: a check that runs from the moment of acquittal until the sentence for damages is awarded. "Perhaps we could inaugurate a new category, that of urgent films," comments Lisa Nur Sultan, co-writer of "Zustissia" with Niccolò Gentili, "because I believe that after 33 years it is quite urgent to give back to Beniamino and all the Daring Ones of Italy the dignity of being able to buy a coffee for his friends at the bar without waiting for his family's money." His story "struck us deeply also because of the way he didn't choose anger (as a reaction). It is not a story of resentment or revenge but a story in which good people found themselves, allied themselves and made sure that justice cured justice."

"It's impossible to truly convey what Beniamino Zuncheddu experienced," Ferracane observes, speaking of his performance. "I met him only once in Cagliari. We hugged and chatted. I had the chance to see him in the way he looked at others, the way he moved. I tried to slip into his silences." When "you're chosen to tell a story like this," Riondino explains, "you take on a responsibility, but you also have the privilege of studying the documents, of seeing what's hidden in the corners, and that's what I had the chance to do, both from a human, personal, and, let's say, passionate perspective on certain issues, and from a professional one. " The miscarriage of justice "behind Beniamino Zuncheddu's conviction is the result of a series of negligences. It's not just the error of one judge, but a collective error." For Geppi Cucciari, who plays Irene Testa in the film, treasurer of the Radical Party and guarantor of prisoners' rights for the Sardinia Region, "the story of my fellow countryman, with such a painful life behind him, is also an example of a family that never turned its back on him," she explains. "There were so many reasons why I was happy to make my small contribution to representing the work of a great woman."

(Unioneonline/D)

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