IFF25 Battleground

Written and directed by Gianni Amelio (Lord of the Ants IFF22), loosely based on the 2018 novel The Challenge by Carlo Patriarca, Battleground is a powerful story of sacrifice, nationalism, courage and compassion during wartime. As World War I draws to a close, two medical officers, childhood friends, work in the same military hospital where every day the most seriously wounded arrive from the front, many with self-inflicted wounds, doing anything to avoid returning to combat. With opposing views about their duties, Dr. Stefano Zorzi (Gabriel Montesi), is a patriotic, duty-bound medic, while Dr. Giulio Farradi (Alessandro Borghi, is more tolerant. Friends with them both since medical school but hampered from continuing her studies, nurse Anna (Federica Rosellini) volunteers alongside them with the Red Cross. But something strange begins to happen, with many patients mysteriously growing worse. As the great ‘Spanish’ flu epidemic arrives in 1918 and the outbreak contaminates the civilian population, soon love, politics and science become dangerously confused as another battle begins.