SYNOPSIS   //
Set on a sun-drenched Apulian beach during Ferragosto, Colpo di Sole follows Chiara, a woman in her early 40s as she lies on a beach and is reminded of her youth and friendship with Gaia some thirty years ago. The film opens on Ferragosto 1986, with 15-year-old Chiara and Gaia playing cards and drinking at a bonfire with Gaia’s new school friends. Gaia, the most consistent presence of her childhood from her summers in Puglia, is now pulling away and Chiara feels more and more like an outsider. She watches as Gaia and the others run toward the cliffs, stripping down, diving into the sea— free, untethered, out of reach. 

Now, decades later, Chiara lies on the same beach, people-watching. Through Chiara’s gaze, strangers on the beach transform into archetypes—embodiments of tourists, Europeans, and humanity at large. Their quirks and interactions, however trivial, evoke the bitter-sweetness of life and trigger memories of her own past. As the afternoon sun climaxes we learn of Gaia’s fatal accident jumping from a cliff on that fateful night of the bonfire in 1986. 

Just when Chiara returns to the sea for a moment of relief, her husband and small daughter approach, instantly grounding her in the present. A meditation on longing, loss, and the way places hold us, Colpo di Sole captures the weight of memory in a sensory portrait of the Mediterranean.