Alessandro Pacioni

Baghdad, 2005. After Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena is kidnapped by insurgents, veteran SISMI negotiator Nicola Calipari is tasked with rescuing her, but interference from US forces in Iraq compromises his mission.

1912. Giovanni Pascoli has died, and a train leaves from Bologna for his funeral. On board, students, officials, and family, including his sister Maria, called Mariù. It is a journey of national mourning, with people from all social classes paying homage to the poet. In Mariù’s recollections, we learn how Giovanni lived: his father’s assassination, his poverty as a youth, his political activism and fraught ties to Giosuè Carducci.