L'istruttoria è chiusa: dimentichi (1971)

While awaiting trial, the architect Vanzi ends up in prison, accused of manslaughter and failing to render assistance after a traffic accident. Once inside, he experiences prison life firsthand, having to navigate the guards’ repressive methods, the violence of his cellmates, and both genuine and less genuine friendships. In prison he befriends Pesenti, who is being held in pretrial detention awaiting trial for assaulting a chief engineer responsible for the collapse of a dam that caused 1,000 deaths. Vanzi becomes embroiled in a plot against Pesenti, an inconvenient witness to organized crime. With the guards’ complicity, Pesenti’s death is made to look like a suicide. For a time, Vanzi tries to make the truth known, but eventually, realizing that his own release depends on his acquiescence, he ends up endorsing the theory that his cellmate committed suicide. This allows him to get out of prison quickly.