The Legionnaire

Belorussian-born Hleb Papou’s feature debut (based on his own 2017 short that premiered at Venice Critics’ Week and was then presented at Karlovy Vary the next year.) follows Daniel (Germano Gentile), the lone Afro-Italian member of Rome’s riot-police division. On the face of it, Daniel’s life isn’t so bad: he is doted on by his beautiful, pregnant wife and respected by his colleagues, though he’s jokingly nicknamed Chocobar by the members of his unit. His tenuous serenity is thrown into question when his unit is tasked with clearing out a tenement building, which contains the childhood home in which his family is still squatting, bringing him into sharp conflict with his more idealistic younger brother. Papou movingly renders Daniel’s inner turmoil as a symptom of the country’s broader attitudes toward immigrants, yielding a political parable as forceful as it is emotionally complex.