The Prosecutor

At the end of the 1990s, prosecutor Marco de Paolis opens the yellowed files for the first time, leading him to a forgotten chapter in history. They tell of massacres of 25,000 civilians and more than 6,000 prisoners of war. And of perpetrators who got away without punishment.

After the armistice agreement between Italy and the Allies, German troops committed numerous war crimes against their former allies. Children, women and elderly people were also killed, entire villages wiped out, countless families destroyed. The perpetrators were later protected by political deals, diplomatic agreements and the shadow of decades of cover-ups. The files were locked away in the basement of Palazzo Cesi, the military prosecutor's office in Rome. They lie in a cabinet pushed up against the wall with its drawers closed. Its contents: 695 unprocessed investigation files. It would later be called the ‘cupboard of shame’.

The documentary tells the story of Marco de Paolis' fight against oblivion, showing the tension between law and power, silence and memory. It tells the story of a man who makes the voices of the victims heard and confronts countries with their own history.