Italian filmmaker Corrado Franco’s “Al Di Qua,” filmed among Turin’s homeless population, is not your typical social issue movie. Few would have the notion to give one of his subjects, a bearded street fellow named Rodolfo, an on-screen funeral in which dozens of his fellow itinerants form a procession to enter a hospital chapel for a testimonial-laced service complete with ghostly special effects and levitation.
Franco’s combination documentary and art film features real sufferers of poverty and destitution telling heartbreaking tales of woe. There’s even a pattern to many of the stories: unexpected financial hardship and emotionally devastating detours into depression or grief suddenly render hard-working men and women invisible to society at the point of their direst need.
