SQUALI
SHARKS
Alberto Rizzi / Italy / 2024 / 107 min / Colour
Loosely inspired by The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the film tells the story of four half-siblings and their fraught relationship with Leone Camasio, their domineering and deceitful father. Demetrio is a cold, overbearing ex-soldier drowning in debt; Ivan, a washed-up athlete clinging to his physique and tormented by the recent breakup with his ex-girlfriend; Alessio, a priest determined to redeem his family’s sins, devoted to a saint who appears to him in dreams. Then there’s Sveva, a troubled and defiant young woman—she’s the only one who stayed with their father, who treats her more like a servant than a daughter. The film was shot entirely in Lessinia, a landscape that evokes the atmosphere of classic Westerns: a borderland that becomes a metaphor for the boundaries of the human soul. The characters’ journeys intertwine with the land and its traditions. The discovery of ancient shark fossils in these mountains offers a striking parallel between the marine predator and the predatory nature of humankind.
Alberto Rizzi
A director and screenwriter from Verona, he works in both theater and film. He graduated in Film Directing from the Luchino Visconti Film School in Milan and founded the production company Ippogrifo. In 2020, he won Best Directing at the Festival del Cinema Italiano for his debut feature Si muore solo da vivi. His second film, Squali (2024), was selected by the Alice nella Città section of the Rome Film Festival.
