VAKHIM

Running Time: 1h 38m
Director: Francesa Pirani
Script: Francesca Pirani
Produced by: Luca Criscenti
Creative Producer: Stefano Viali
Editing: Nicla Moruzzi
Photography: Massimo Assimo, Luciano Usai
Original Music: Tony Carnevale

Synopsis:

Adopted in Cambodia at the age of four, Vakhim arrived in Italy in 2008. He speaks only Khmer and everything around him is unfamiliar, he is a sunny child and to adapt he removes the traces of his short life, which, however, does not disappear completely. In Italy there is Maklin, his older sister, and after a few years a letter arrives: it is Vakhim’s birth mother asking about her son. Francesca and Simone, the adoptive parents, decide to go looking for her.

DIRECTOR, Francesa Pirani

A multifaceted Italian director and screenwriter, Francesca works between cinema, television, theater and literature.

Graduated in Film History and Criticism from the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” with a thesis on the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, Pirani completed her training at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and at the Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica “Silvio D’Amico.”

She collaborated – as assistant director – with Marco Bellocchio for the film La visione del sabba (1988), which she also co-wrote, and for Il sogno della farfalla (1994). In addition, she curated several film reviews directed by Bellocchio.

1997 was her film debut: L’appartamento, produced by Rai and Marco Bellocchio’s Film Albatros production, the first chapter of a four-films project entitled Un altro paese nei miei occhi, about immigration in Italy.

In 2002 she co-directed the feature film Una bellezza che non lascia scampo, and in 2017 the documentary BEO with Stefano Viali, which has won numerous awards such as Best Italian Documentary at the Rome Independent Film Festival and Silver Palm at the Mexico International Film Festival. More recently, again with Stefano Viali, she co-directed D’Annunzio. the man who invented himself (2022).

For television, among many others, she co-directed important documentaries with Carlo Lizzani such as Napoli Napoli Napoli (2006), Bergamo e provincia (2006), Agusta Westland (2007), Lumsa. Un grande cammino (2010) and Suor Orsola Benincasa: dalla Cittadella all’Istituto Universitario (2011).