This documentary follows the Fort Apache Theatre Company through one year of intense work. All the members of Fort Apache have participated to the theatre workshops that were held at Rebibbia (the primary jail in Rome), and are now able to pursue their new passion for acting even outside of prison. Now, after many years of hard work and dedication, these ex-convicts are now part of the Fort Apache “family” under the lead of Valentina Esposito, who is the founder of the company as well as the screenwriter and director of all the plays. Valentina takes inspiration from the ex-convicts’ difficult lives and unresolved relationships, and turns them into a screenplay that every actor can identify with and take as a cue to better understand their traumas. This theatre experience was born from the actors’ past, their broken souls, tattooed bodies, and violent language, and is also a way for them to face life with some precious life-changing tools. The bond between reality and theatrical fiction is at the heart of the documentary, as well as the alternation between the actor’s private lives and the theater rehearsals. Our aim is to open up a window on the ex-convicts’ past lives, and follow their journey from imprisonment to freedom.
We want to bring the extraordinary determination that allows them to face the “outside world” to the screen. The actors never miss a rehearsal. Their passion for theater is what unites them, what enables them to find a new “family”, and an alternate universe in which they can freely express themselves. The unexpected success of Marcello Fonte after his role in the movie “Dogman”, and his victory of the best actor’s Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, have brought the medias’ attention to Fort Apache. In the months leading up to the staging of Valentina’s new play, “Famiglia”, which will take place in the very prestigious India theater in Rome, the actors will rehearse intensely in order to appear to the audience only as “actors” and not as “ex-convicts” anymore.