Monte Cassino

“Monte Cassino” is a war drama based on real-life events in Italy between 1943-1944. Amid the Allied invasion of Italy during World War II, the Nucci family enjoyed a privileged life in the town of Cassino, just south of Rome. After the arrest of the country’s dictator Benito Mussolini, the German demeanour toward the Italians changed dramatically. As the Nucci family attempts to evacuate their home, they are separated and splintered into three groups, embarking the family on an excruciating and dangerous journey to return home. Tonally, the film’s structure is simple and episodic. An homage to Italian neorealism cinema as seen in Vittorio De Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief” (1948) and his war drama “La Ciociara” (1960). The Nuccis is a collage of testimonials created to depict the horrors on the civilian population during the Italian armistice. The story also focuses on a very little-known atrocity of war called the “Marocchinate,” in which Moroccan troops of the French Expeditionary Corps embarked on a wave of mass rapes and murders while supposedly serving the Allied campaign for the liberation of Italy. This journey to reunite transforms the Nucci family in a way where they can never be whole again.