Some of you Killed Luisa

In Some of You Killed Luisa, Valeria Cherchi (IT) attempts to unravel the complex structure of the kidnapping phenomenon that has plagued her homeland, the Italian island of Sardinia. Between the 1960s and 1990s, nearly 200 people were kidnapped for ransom.

On 16 June 1992, a priest finds the upper part of a human ear on a mountain road in Barbagia, in central Sardinia, while a young boy, Farouk Kassam, spends his fifth month in a hidden cave. He is being held captive by a group of masked strangers. He is only six years old, roughly the same age as Cherchi. Like most children, he was also terrified of being taken from home.

Eleven years later, Luisa Manfredi was shot dead on the balcony of her flat. She was 14 years old and the daughter of Matteo Boe, Farouk's kidnapper. No one was charged or convicted for her murder, which remains a mystery.