VULNERARE at Festival of Cinema NYC – Sergio Mario Illuminato’s short film

An abandoned 19th-century prison. Empty cells untouched for thirty years. Peeling walls and silence.

A group of international artists steps inside the place no one wants to be-and discovers something unexpected: beauty emerging from pain.

From this experience comes VULNERARE, a short film shot inside the former Pontifical Prison of Velletri, selected to represent Italy at the prestigious Festival of Cinema NYC. The only New York City film festival supported by three major public institutions-the National Endowment for the Arts, the NY State Council on the Arts, and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs-has chosen the film among just five international shorts, alongside works from the USA, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland.

The Velletri prison, built in the 1800s under papal authority and closed in the 1990s, was once destined for demolition. But in 2023, it became a creative laboratory, inhabited by artists, dancers, photographers, and musicians. Six months of living with memory, to return meaning to a forgotten place.

The result is a 13-and-a-half-minute film that resists definition-not merely video art, nor simply experimental cinema. It is a visual and emotional experience, which director Sergio Mario Illuminato calls a “Cinema of the Threshold”-where nothing is scripted and everything arises from the relationship between presence and place. The choreography by Compagnia Atacama (Patrizia Cavola – Ivan Truol), Camilla Perugini and Nicholas Baffoni dancer, cinematography by Federico Marchi – Roberto Biagiotti, and music-sound design by Andrea Moscianese – Davide Palmiotto create a poetic, immersive, raw, and spiritual narrative.

VULNERARE ends with a message scrawled on a wall:
“Vulnerable, therefore alive. Art is loving reality.”
A Morse code message-IOSONOVULNERABILE (“I am vulnerable”)-is hidden in the soundscape.

While Illuminato is already preparing his first feature film, “THE BASALT THRESHOLD” set to be shot in 2026 on the island of Pantelleria, VULNERARE is meanwhile carrying the voice of an Italy unafraid of fragility-an Italy that transforms it into beauty.

📍 Details
August 3, 2025
CINEMA REGAL – United Artist Midway Stadium 9
108-22 Queens Blvd, Forest Hills, NY 11375

Available: backstage video materials, high-resolution images, interviews with director and artistic cast. MEDIA-KIT Link

Movimento VulnerarTe APS
Via Pasquale Villari, 23, 00184 Roma, Italy
Roberta Melasecca
Communication Manager