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CONTRORA - HOUSE OF SHADOWS

CONTRORA

By Rossella DE VENUTO

Horror - Completed 2013

A couple returns to Italy to the old family palace. that hides a secret.
The wife will be urged to solve this mystery when getting in touch with the presences that haunt the palace during the daytime

- Year of production
- 2013
- Genres
- Horror, First film
- Countries
- ITALY, IRELAND
- Languages
- ENGLISH, ITALIAN
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 85 mn
- Director(s)
- Rossella DE VENUTO
- Writer(s)
- Rossella DE VENUTO, Francesco PICCOLO
- Cast
- Fiona GLASCOTT, Federico CASTELLUCCIO, Pietro RAGUSA, Marcello PRAYER, Bianca NAPPI, Ray LOVELOCK, Achille BRUGNINI
- ISAN
- 0000-0003-CA0F-0000-A-0000-0000-7
- EIDR
- 10.5240/FDE3-03A8-C27C-7AE4-FA94-U
- Producer(s)
- Maurizio ANTONINI (Interlinea Films), Dominic WRIGHT (Ripple World Pictures), Jacqueline KERRIN (Ripple World Pictures), Valentina GARDANI (Barter)
- Synopsis
- Leo, Italian who has emigrated abroad, lives with his younger wife, Megan. They return to southern Italy, to settle the will of a deceased uncle, a powerful priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
  Leo wants to sell the old family palace he has inherited. It is an antique palace that has not been lived in since the 60’s when the family left it deserted, full of memories, as time has stopped. For fun they decide to live there for a while until everything is taken care of. Leo intends to sell his property to his brother, Nicola, who is now the priest of the town.
  During the stay in his old hometown, Leo, after many years away, rediscovers his friends, first of whom Michele, enjoys again the old habits and, in the magic of the house, the couple even finds again an unexpected physical attraction. Megan soon realizes that the Mediterranean world is different from how she had expected it to be. The light, the heath, the flavors, the people, are all so intense, maybe too much for her used to Northern climates and atmospheres. The old palace as well has something in it she perceives but cannot well define. She doesn’t get on with Leo’s friends and the townspeople, especially the women; she tends to isolate herself in the palace with her work as illustrator. The town’s hostility increases with the arrival of a priest sent from northern Italy to investigate on the sanctification process of father Domenico, the passed uncle of Leo and former owner of the palace. During the midday hours, whom the locals call the “Controra”, when the heat becomes unbearable and people rest indoors protected by the shade of their homes, Megan enters into contact with sinister presences that dwell in the old palace.
  They are known as the “shadows” of the dead who find no peace and return to visit with the living.
  In the family story, there is a mystery which she is now urged to solve. When Leo surprisingly decides not to sell the palace, but instead to renovate it and stay there more than planned, they start to drift apart. She is obsessed by the Palace memories . Leo believes she is losing her mind Megan instead is consumed by the mystery she is uncovering interpreting clues found in the palace. She now understands that her visions are not part of her imagination. In a dramatic and breathtaking crescendo we will follow Megan and Leo in the uncovering of the family secret hoarded in old palace and town.
- Partners & financing
- Irish Film Board, Mibac, Apulia Film Commission, BLS Sudtyrol, Lazio Film Fund, investors Fix, Lacote
- Production schedule
- film completed Fall 2013
- Beginning of shooting
- May 01, 2012