On a winter morning in Catania, Rachele returns to the apartment she once shared with Paolo to gather her belongings. As she packs, ordinary objects bring back traces of their recently ended relationship. Their emotional value recalls the tradition of the bridal trousseau, opening a reflection across generations on the meaning we give to objects, home, and relationships today.
International Title If Things Could Ever Talk Year of production 2026 Length 20' Country Italy, France Shooting Format16mm Aspect Ratio 1.66:1 Dialogue Italian
Director Giulia Cosentino ProductionOkta Film Producer Paolo Benzi Co-ProductionEnvie de Tempête Co-Producers Jessica Cressy, Frédéric Dubreuil Line Producer Francesca Bennett Writer Giulia Cosentino Director of PhotographyCamilla Cattabriga First Assistant Director Benedetta Barroero Editor Massimo Da Re Sound Designer Marzia Cordò Sound EngineerFabio Vassallo Production DesignerMarta Morandini Graphic DesignerAnna Murie Costume Designer Loredana Buscemi Mix Giancarlo Rutigliano Music HRTBRKR (Simone Valentini) Colorist and Color GradingAlessio Zanardi Cast Astrid Casali, Emanuele Linfatti, Francesca Melluso
With the support of Regione Siciliana - Sicilia Film Commission CNC - Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée. In collaboration with Fondazione Home Movies - Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Cineteca di Bologna, Fondo Lai, Cineteca Sarda - Società umanitaria di Cagliari, Fondo de Abbondi, Archivio MI.VIL.
Festival selections Venice Critics Week 2026 - World Premiere, Best Technical Contribution Award Advista, Centro Nazionale del Cortometraggio Award, FEDIC Award Incanto Film Festival 2026, Italy - Best Cinematography Award for Camilla Cattabriga Torino Underground Cinefest 2026, Italy
Director's Statement In my previous films, I was exploring the ways in which women’s roles were shaped in relation to the societies of the past. In recent years, I have shifted this question toward the present: I began to ask myself how women of my generation still experience the tension between independence and social relationships. Unlike in the past, we grew up believing that autonomy and self-fulfillment were essential achievements. Yet when we begin to desire something beyond our personal ambitions, we come up against a society that has failed to adapt to the evolution of the freedoms that were promised to us. We discover that choosing love, family, or motherhood still entails a conflict with that/the very freedom we have fought so hard to attain. Through Rachele, I explore this contemporary fracture. I am not interested in staging a conflict between a man and a woman, or in portraying men as enemies, but rather in exploring a subtler generational crisis. Has the model of individual success, so liberating for my generation, itself become a new imposed role, no less constraining than those of the past? It is this contradiction, this inheritance that we must confront, that the film seeks to make tangible through Rachele’s inner conflict. This is why I work with objects: seemingly silent presences that absorb time, preserve the traces of relationships, and become emotional archives, carrying a life rooted in their intangible value. Through a minimalist yet layered cinematic language — static images, close attention to detail, and the centrality of sound — memory emerges not merely as narrative reconstruction, but as a sensory experience. The archive of wedding trousseaux from the past intervenes as an emotional counterpoint and a source of emotional tension. It opens the reflection to an even earlier time and offers a visual meditation on women’s gestures and on the legacy of a genealogy of female gestures across time. In this way, the film transforms a private crisis into a collective reflection. Starting from the simple act of emptying a house, it asks: what, in this gesture, is truly mine, and what have I learned to desire?
