Film Commission Torino Piemonte

Inside the Santa Maria Maggiore Prison in Venice, 15 inmates are participating in a workshop held by actress, director and psychologist Eleonora D'Urso. The goal is to work on comedy. Over the course of eight days, the inmates will set out on an original course that has its center in laughter, which is so rare, difficult and restrained in an environment like prison. One woman, alone, stands in front of 15 men to try to engage them in a journey that is both personal and shared: laughing with others allows for positive relationships that become salvific in a psychologically impactful context such as imprisonment. The workshop days become the natural scansion of the film, the progression of stories that emerge from the protagonists' own words. Dorso Duro is not a film about the condition of prisoners or a denunciation of the prison situation: it is a film about the people who populate it.