“A boy has been dead” is an Italian movie directed by Filippo Vendemmiati, which has recently been awarded as “the best documentary 2010” at Bari International film and television festival. Federico Aldrovandi, just turned eighteen, on 25 September 2005 after a wild night in Bologna, meet with a patrol car near the hippodrome in Ferrara. Few hours later his family gained knowledge of his disappearance. After those moments many questions and a lot of silence. The documentary retraces the human and judicial events connected to Federico’s death, the police reconstruction which is about a drug overdose death, the minds of relatives and friends filled with astonishment and grief and a judicial inquiry destined to be dismissed.
After few weeks the news of Federico’s death was ignored by local media, just after a blog creation by his mother the news has spread across the country. The first suspicions, the disfigured boy’s body , the official versions which were denied by the forensic tests, the involvement of the police and the investigations brought the scandal to the media's attention. Filippo Vendemmiati talks about Federico Aldrovandi’s story, the checked events and the mystery which enshrouds them, the lawsuit and its surprising turn of events, trying to solve the enigma. The storytelling is animated with video documents recorded by protagonists . Federico Aldrovandi’s story place itself exactly between the G8 events in Genova in 2001 and Stefano Cucchi’s death in 2009 and it outlines a phenomenon which is terrible and disarming : state violence. The documentary is similar to a legal thriller: it is exciting and pressing but also intolerable for any civic conscience in the strict sense of the word.The film director respects Federico’s dignity and he is maybe the only one, provided that it is implausible but true that in a city like Ferrara, UNESCO cultural heritage, the only direct evidence was provided by a citizen from Camerun, who was waiting for the renewal of her residence permit. Conveniently, the sense of confusion, anger and indifference are summarized in the pun in the title. Nonetheless, “A boy has been dead” is a story on the freedom of the press, it focuses on the information system in Italy at the present time and, most of all , in the future regarding the violence in institutions and justice.The day of the judgement is not the day of the truth , but of doubts and of fear which affect victims and presumed innocents : all the process was completely ignored by media coverage, just the last day journalists came out of hibernation to record tears and disputes. The four agents were sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment because Federico is not dead , he was killed and he deserves to live again through our defence of his dignity and his memory so that this incident does not happen anymore. 