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Nicola, alias Corvaz, is a simple and instinctive 28 year old who works hard in the vineyards of his abusive father, and loves walking in the forest with his dog Toni, his only friend. Nicola's everyday suddenly changes when his mother dies. She was sectioned years before in a psychiatric hospital accused of having tried to drown her son. On the day of his mother's funeral, Nicola overhears that she committed suicide, rekindling his sense of guilt, convinced since childhood to be the cause of her insanity. Shortly thereafter, the village is troubled by a series of acts of vandalism, of which Corvaz is accused: now he is considered as dangerous as his mother. He finds, however, an unexpected understanding in Mara, the energetic barista of the village, engaged with the scion of a powerful local family. The friendship between the two will ignite the grudge of the community against Corvaz, guilty of having violated the ‘rispet’. When a punishing expedition gets out of hand, Nicola will be forced to show his most ferocious side to save himself and break the chains linked to the villagers ‘rispet’.
Rispet: a word in the Trentino dialect, that is repeated constantly and that embodies unwritten rules of life, beacon of the relations between the inhabitants of a small mountain village. It is based on two cornerstones: honour and shame and is the yardstick with which the villagers judge each other. Anyone who violates the rules must be punished with the pillory of slander that isolates from the rest of the community. Who ‘respects’ it is part of the great family, is worthy of help and understanding, even if he/she behaves badly. Rispet embodies itself in shame, in the fear of being different, in not accepting a sick or weird child, in the impossibility of showing oneself weak in front of others.
Representing "rispet" for me - explains the director - means talking about a feeling that has influenced my entire life: despite the fact that I left my mountain town at eighteen, and had the opportunity to get to know other worlds, a part of him survives rooted deep inside me, like an old scar that comes back to bother me every now and then. Cecilia's precious work is followed by the sociologist Christian Arnoldi, author of “Tristi Montagne. Guide to Alpine ailments”, which describes “rispet” as reluctance, restraint, shame, emotions that lead people to suffocate feelings and desires in order not to violate the consolidated balance of a community and risk being laughed at or excluded. With this film - Cecilia underlines - I wanted to highlight this particular aspect of life in the mountains. Not the only one, of course, but the one that most of all ends up hidden under the carpet, like dust that you don't want to see. I was born and raised in a small town in Trentino, I experienced firsthand "rispet" and its consequences, sometimes even tragic, but I decided as an adult to continue living in a small mountain village. I consider this film an act of love, not contempt, towards the reality that surrounds me, a reality that still remains my home.
