Early on we learn (somewhat nonlinearly) that Angelo, who lives with his wife Cora and son Giovanni in the housing complex Rozzol Melara in Trieste has been a professor at the local university, has (or had) leftist ideas and has been involved in immigration to Italy of refugees from the former Yugoslavia at the time of the NATO attack in 1999. In the course of his work he may have been involved with unsavory characters in Yugoslavia and is suspected by Dusan, a refugee, of having to do with the disappearance of Dusan's wife and child. (Incidentally, the Rozzol Melara, a maze of naked concrete apartment blocks interconnected by bridges and endless echoing corridors, sitting on rather squalid landscaping, has been qualified as one of the world's worst urban spaces).
Giovanni is blind after an operation in early infancy, and Angelo, unable to cope with the situation or to take responsibility for his son's needs has abandoned his position in the university and taken instead a menial job delivering newspaper bundles to newsstands. Angelo's communication with Giovanni has dwindled to almost nothing, and Angelo's wife, trying to do what Angelo wouldn't, is at her wits' end.
There is very little dialog, and almost nothing from Angelo; ironically, most of the spoken words in the movie are delivered (with pedantic and somewhat comic precision) by an agent of the Italian INS who is investigating Angelo for possibly aiding and abetting violations of immigration laws.
The key to the movie is perhaps the walk by the family through a dark tunnel, where the title Voices in the Dark comes to life, but what this entails for the future is very much left to the viewer; there is no neat solution. To its credit, the movie is totally free of the maudlin sentimentality and naive approach common to many works on the Balkan conflict.
Director Rodolfo Bissatti has been associated with Ipotesi Cinema (Hypothesis Cinema), a film school founded in 1982 by renowned Italian director Ermanno Olmi. The school functions as a collective workshop where all participants contribute to writing, directing, shooting and editing. The teachers offer only their expertise in each area. The goal is that every participant in the making of a movie should become a coauthor. Olmi characterized this method as "learning by doing" in an informal setting of conversation and exchange of ideas.
Giovanni is blind after an operation in early infancy, and Angelo, unable to cope with the situation or to take responsibility for his son's needs has abandoned his position in the university and taken instead a menial job delivering newspaper bundles to newsstands. Angelo's communication with Giovanni has dwindled to almost nothing, and Angelo's wife, trying to do what Angelo wouldn't, is at her wits' end.
There is very little dialog, and almost nothing from Angelo; ironically, most of the spoken words in the movie are delivered (with pedantic and somewhat comic precision) by an agent of the Italian INS who is investigating Angelo for possibly aiding and abetting violations of immigration laws.
The key to the movie is perhaps the walk by the family through a dark tunnel, where the title Voices in the Dark comes to life, but what this entails for the future is very much left to the viewer; there is no neat solution. To its credit, the movie is totally free of the maudlin sentimentality and naive approach common to many works on the Balkan conflict.
Director Rodolfo Bissatti has been associated with Ipotesi Cinema (Hypothesis Cinema), a film school founded in 1982 by renowned Italian director Ermanno Olmi. The school functions as a collective workshop where all participants contribute to writing, directing, shooting and editing. The teachers offer only their expertise in each area. The goal is that every participant in the making of a movie should become a coauthor. Olmi characterized this method as "learning by doing" in an informal setting of conversation and exchange of ideas.
