Days

Colour, 35mm
Italy, 2001, 80 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

Claudio works as a bank clerk and has been HIV positive for ten years. He shares a home with Dario, he regularly goes for check-ups at the clinic, he visits his mother and meets up with his sister Laura – seemingly a well-balanced person in all respects. One day he meets Andrea with whom he had an affair some time before. Andrea is a young and good-looking man who works as a waiter in a restaurant. Claudio is attracted to him but Andrea is uneasy about his secretiveness. For a time Claudio manages to keep away from Andrea but then he completely succumbs to his charm and the carefree attitude Andrea expresses in relation to his illness, as if it didn’t matter. Enchanted by his spontaneity, Claudio gradually allows the protective wall he had carefully built around him to fall away. He forgets about Dario, about his work, his illness, until one day he understands that he is no longer able to reconcile Andrea’s absolute conception of love with the incessant call of destiny, and he returns to his old lifestyle. He moves to another city and disappears from Andrea’s presence. The latter receives news about him a year later.

About the director

Laura Muscardin was born in Rome where she studied at La Sapienza University, later completing a production course at the University of Southern California. During the early 1990s she founded the independent company Gold Mist for which she made short and documentary films and videos. At the end of the 1990s she worked as an assistant director and producer in film and theatre. The script for her first feature-length film, Days (Giorni), won the prestigious Premio Solinas in 1997. Filmography (selection): Love and Kisses from Rome, Variations on Casanova (Variazioni su Casanova), Tea on the Set – screened in the Finestra sulle immagini section at the Venice IFF in 1995.