Event organized by the Liquida Festival. With the support of Intrecci culturali and Festival Ammajare
What happened inside the San Sebastiano prison in Sassari on April 3, 2000? Why, in a place where the air has been still for years, does something suddenly stir until it becomes protest, a call for help, a desperate search for a solution that never comes? And what do those stains of clotted blood in the “roundabout”, in the visiting room, in the cells and in the corridors tell? And those silences coming from the rooms of power? It all starts with a letter that ends up in the hands of a criminal lawyer, a journalist and the judiciary, which decides to cross those walls with determination. And inside, an atrocious truth is uncovered: a harsh story, hard to tell. A wrong story.
Twenty-five years later, those voices are heard again. There is the journalist who first listened to mothers and wives who shouted questions and demanded answers about their sons and husbands. There is the educator from the Alghero prison, who found himself facing, among the inmates, the Superintendent of the prison administration and several police officers. There are the testimonies of the women, the detainees, the lawyers, all united by the will to break the silence and restore dignity to those who lost it. Voice by voice, like in a novel, the truth resurfaces. The heavy air moves, changes, sketches a new picture that, in memory, helps us understand.
Giampaolo Cassitta (Oristano 1959) was an educator at Asinara from 1985 to 1998. He later served as a manager in the Juvenile Justice Centers. He wrote the Asinara novels Il rumore del silenzio (2001), Supercarcere Asinara (2002) and C’era una volta all’Asinara (2023), all published by Frilli editori, and the essay on kidnappings La zona grigia, cronaca di un sequestro di persona (Condaghes, 2010). Among his other novels: Il giorno di Moro (2006, Frilli), Il piano zero (2011), Le destinazioni del cielo (2014), the biography of Father Salvatore Morittu Gli ultimi sognano a colori (2016, Premio Franco Putzolu), Dolci, sante e marescialli (2017), Domani è un altro giorno (2020, Premio Catania), Sulla collina. 50 storie di pandemia (2020, e-book) and La legge di Donna Matilde (2025). He is a columnist for «La Nuova Sardegna» and artistic director of the Genera and Ammajare festivals.
Pier Luigi Piredda (Sassari 1957). A professional journalist since 1983, he has always worked for the daily «La Nuova Sardegna», ending his career as head of the Nuoro newsroom. He wrote news reports, covering for the paper the most important events that happened in Sardinia and beyond. He reported on feuds, murders, kidnappings and the captures of dangerous fugitives. He also covered the tragedy of the Moby Prince and the Palermo massacre in which magistrate Paolo Borsellino and the officers of his escort were killed. He recounted the postwar period in Bosnia with reports from Sarajevo. With photographer Elisabetta Loi, he published Sotto il cielo di Herat (Carlo Delfino 2013), where he told the story of the Sassari Brigade mission in Afghanistan. In 2000 he received an honorable mention at the Lao Silesu Journalism Prize for his reporting on the beating in the San Sebastiano prison in Sassari.
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Event made possible with the support of:
Autonomous Region of Sardinia
Department of public education, cultural heritage, information, entertainment and sport
Fondazione di Sardegna
Municipality of Sassari
and in collaboration with the Mario Sironi Academy of Fine Arts, the Ammajare festival, the Intrecci culturali association, the Clip Collective and the Koinè Ubik bookshop in Sassari
