The appointment

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The appointment (L’appuntamento)

The appointment (L’appuntamento)

original title:

L’appuntamento

cinematography:

costume design:

production:

country:

Italy

year:

2001

film run:

76'

format:

colour

festivals & awards:

This story takes place, from dawn to nightfall, in Rome nowadays.
People from various ethnic origins meet in a social Center, open in an old public building. Rosa, a young woman just past her teens, plays an African instrument, the kora, with her band. Linda, a forty-year-old woman, teaches classical ballet to the girls.
Life seems to pass very quietly, among the preparation for a party that night, but there is an impending threat. Romano, an arrogant man in his thirties, delivers a letter of eviction signed by a lawyer, Parisi.
When Linda hears that name, she is startled and says that she knows him. She wants to meet him.
For Linda and Romano, who are so different from each other, a strange journey begins in the chaotic city, upset by ever-present roadwork that seem to swallow the tide of cars and stories.
Linda, in such an unusual situation, sees some places that take her back in time, so that her ghosts resurface.
At the same time Rosa, constantly angry, faces the city as always, and looks for solace in her music.
During the day, Linda and Rosa will cross each other’s paths, without meeting.
Behind them, there is a common ghost.
In the violent city big and small tragedies take place: a Black prostitute is raped, Rosa’s dog and a friend of her are killed by some tramps, lawyer Parisi uses a Kurd girl as goods in exchange for the control over the social Center...
These events touch the protagonists; they re-define their relationships, and let the past ghosts resurface.
It is revealed that Rosa is Linda’s daughter, they are kept separate by the mother’s past as terrorist and by the father’s death during the years of terror.
The infernal city pushes the two women closer: Rosa shows up in front of the prison in the evening, when Linda goes back, and gives her a tape with her music. Their relationship starts again from here, from the same music that many years before Linda had started to teach to her daughter.