On 23 February 2026, LO SCURU is released in Italian cinemas, cinematographer Sara Purgatorio CCS AMC

A debut feature capable of immersing the viewer in an unspeakable pain.
MyMovies

Lo Scuro, the debut feature by Giuseppe William Lombardo and an adaptation of Orazio Labbate‘s novel of the same name, will be released in Italian cinemas on 23 February 2026. On that day, cinematographer Sara Purgatorio CCS AMC and editor Ilario Monti will be present at Cinema Teatro Don Bosco in Rome, with director Giuseppe William Lombardo joining remotely.
It is a black-and-white feature film tracing a personal and unsettling journey through the memories and beliefs of an ancestral Sicily. Raz, played by Fabrizio Falco, is a young man tormented by nightmares and visions entangled with a diagnosis of schizophrenia; dissatisfied with medical explanations, he returns to his homeland in search of answers, confronting superstition, popular spirituality, and places steeped in ancient sorrows and collective memory. The film explores the boundary between reality and vision within a world where land, faith and tradition are inseparable — a Sicily perceived not as an exotic backdrop, but as a space where scientific knowledge and myth, reason and superstition, are brought into dialogue.

Alongside Falco, the cast includes Daniela Scattolin (Rosa), Simona Malato (Teresa), Guia Jelo (Maria), Vincenzo Pirrotta (Father Manfredi), Fabrizio Ferracane (Nitto), Filippo Luna (Salvatore) and Giuditta Perriera (Minica), a group of performers who help to shape the relationships and presences that surface along the protagonist’s journey.

Lombardo works from a screenplay by Pietro Seghetti, inspired by Labbate’s novel, with cinematography by Sara Purgatorio CCS AMC, who crafts the film’s black-and-white imagery; editing is by Ilario Monti, production design by Paolo Previti, costumes by Barbara Anselmo and music by Santi Pulvirenti. The film is produced by Grey Ladder Productions with the support of the Ministry of Culture and backing from the Sicilia Film Commission. It is distributed by Academy Two.

Sara Purgatorio CCS AMC told us:
«Here’s a refined version:
In this film, working alongside director Giuseppe William Lombardo, we sought to distance the story from clichés about Sicily, with the intention of suspending space and time in a dimension closer to the mental — drawing nearer, in this way, to the protagonist’s point of view. Raz is, above all, a young man on a spiritual journey, and we gave form in black and white to the expressionist textures of a light-and-shadow dichotomy — light and dark, reality and vision — that runs through his story. It was important to free the narrative from the associations naturally inherent in Sicilian landscapes, while at the same time preserving their majesty, unease and desolation — qualities we sought to convey through Gothic tones. To that end, we chose anamorphic lenses and handheld camerawork as the foundation on which to build the film’s aesthetic. ».