REVIEW - A Chiara | To Chiara

A teenager demands to know the truth about the media’s portrayal of her father in this authentic, slow-burning drama.

The Italy in which 15-year-old Chiara (Swamy Rotolo) lives – Calabria, in the southern tip of the mainland – lacks the beauty and romance of much of the rest of the country. Kids hurl insults from a sullen concrete seafront; behind them, the bones of industrial structures jut into a sky the colour of galvanised steel. But Chiara is comfortable in her world. This all changes when the family car is torched and her father abruptly disappears. Chiara demands answers – is her dad a mafia drug dealer, as the local media claims? But she comes up against a solid bank of silence. Defiant, Chiara persists in asking the kind of questions that might not get responses but certainly get attention.

Jonas Carpignano’s impressive, slow-burning drama captures a milieu that is bound by rules that have little to do with the laws of the land. There’s a sparky authenticity to the performances , bolstered by the fact that Carpignano cast a real-life family in the central roles.

THE GUARDIAN ****