Sangue del mio sangue (2015)

The Clarissan convent in Bobbio, 17th century. Federico Mai, a young soldier, is urged by his mother to go to the convent prison in Bobbio, where Sister Benedetta is accused of witchcraft for seducing Fabrizio, Federico’s twin brother, and leading him to betray his priestly vocation and take his own life in the waters of the Trebbia River. His mother insists that Federico clear his twin’s name so he can receive a proper burial, but Federico, too, is enchanted by Benedetta, who is sentenced to life imprisonment and walled up alive. Thirty years later, Federico, now a cardinal, will meet Benedetta again, still imprisoned within those walls. In the present day, Federico Mai knocks at the door of the convent, later turned into a prison and apparently abandoned. Claiming to be an inspector from the ministry, he owns the property and is accompanied by Rikalkov, a Russian billionaire who wants to buy it. In fact, the place is still inhabited by a mysterious count, who illegally occupies some cells in the old prison and roams the town only at night. The arrival of the two outsiders throws the entire community of Bobbio into turmoil. Under the “count’s” leadership, the community tries to get by through fraud and subterfuge, resisting in every possible way the inexorable advance of modernity.