Vahkim by Francesca Pirani, cinematographer Massimo Intoppa CCS, will be screened at Cinema delle Province, Rome, on Thursday 20 (4 p.m.), Friday 21 (6 p.m.), Saturday 22 (8.40 p.m.) and Sunday 23 (4 p.m.) November. Director Francesca Pirani will be present in the theatre on Thursday 20, Saturday 22 and Sunday 23. Read the interview with Massimo Intoppa, the film’s cinematographer, made for its presentation in Venice.
International adoptions are emotionally intense and complex journeys, and Francesca Pirani’s documentary Vakhim masterfully tells one such story. The director is the adoptive mother of Vakhim and gradually comes to realise that the child, in Cambodia, had a sister, Maklin, who was also later found to have been adopted in Italy. The film retraces the different stages of their story and, above all, returns to Cambodia to stage the memories that Vakhim and Maklin had always, in some way, expressed — memories that finally found fulfilment when the siblings were reunited. A finalist for the Solinas Prize in 2019, Vakhim was presented in the Giornate degli Autori section at Venice 81, won the Audience Award at the RIDF – Rome International Documentary Festival, received a Special Mention (SNCCI Critics’ Prize) at the African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival (FESCAAAL), and the Audience Award at the SalinaDocFest 2024. It was also selected for the Cambodia Town Film Festival (Long Beach, USA) in the Official Selection and screened at the Cambodia International Film Festival (CIFF) at the Institut français in Phnom Penh.
