15seconds

When we were presented with the opportunity to produce a piece on capital punishment we did not have a moment of hesitation. Accepting has meant not only supporting this project in its concrete realization but above all backing an initiative which has our full support. We want to be active participants in a “communication” that strengthens a more ambitious project of “civic education”.
We will in no way avoid our responsibilities towards collectivity. We are intent on committing our best ideas and all our energy in the hope of leaving even a small trace of renewed sensibility and awareness in our interlocutors. We hope that this project succeeds in soliciting reflection and stimulating commitment among the young generations, in schools and universities, so as to provide fertile terrain for the urgent and mature need to affirm and protect the universal human rights of man.

The Project

The short film 15 Seconds written and directed by Gianluca Petrazzi with Bova and many well-known Italian actors such as Claudio Santamaria, Ricky Memphis, Enrico Lo Verso and Claudia Pandolfi. Reflections and Backstage document the genesis and development of the short; the thoughts, reflections and operational think-tanks that have led to the production of this work in all its phases. There are also interviews, whose protagonists are those taking part in the short as well as prominent representatives from a variety of communities: parliamentarians, intellectuals and philosophers, writers and journalists: Hon. Emma Bonino Vice Presidente del Senato della Repubblica, Mr. Erri De Luca writer, Hon. Franco Frattini Ministro degli Affari Esteri, Prof. Luigi Manconi sociologist and journalist, Hon. Luisa Morgantini Vice Presidente del Parlamento Europeo, Mr. Moni Ovadia author e actor, Pres. Romano Prodi, Prof. Younis Tawfik writer e journalist, Mr. Sandro Veronesi writer.
The intention is to give the project widespread and articulate visibility by using many different channels as: Its presentation to the European Parliament in Brussels on October 7 2008, prior to the “European Day against the Death Penalty” and during the celebration of UN’s 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Its presentation in Rome in the Sala Regina of Montecitorio on October 10 2008, on the occasion of the “European Day against the Death Penalty”; The Sponsorship of the Ministry of Education for its distribution in schools and universities throughout Italy, as well as amongst interested associations and institutions.

Raoul Bova

“A lethal injection put an end, yesterday morning at dawn, to three years of legal battles to save the life of ……”
“He died in a penitentiary……. by death poisoning…..”
Leafing through the newspaper I frequently came across these sort of news and I have always put myself the same question: Is it right to kill someone who has killed? This question has always brought to my mind a series of considerations. The societies that practise capital punishment do so as an act of self-defense to eradicate a part of themselves they consider sick?
Do they believe that by acting in such an inhuman and instinctive way they are stopping the diffusion of deviant behaviour?
I read, I did some research on the subject and my questions were answered. I got the sensation that often the death penalty is assigned the function of a “social cleanser” besides acting, also, as a cleanser for the conscience of those who support it. The death penalty hits the outcasts, the mentally sick, the alcoholics but too frequently, also those considered guilty because they have the courage to hold a different opinion. Horror and despair increase, if possible, when due to a judiciary error the life of an innocent person is terminated. The alternative to all this is to consider every single life as sacred. We must use all our energies in those efforts to rehabilitate and reintegrate in society all those guilty of even the most hideous crimes. Well aware that there are still many societies that practice capital punishment I commit myself to convince even its most avid supporters that the path of clemency and rehabilitation is more effective. Our life is a constant conflict between the individual and society, between moral principles and laws, between forgiveness and revenge. I wish everybody would bring up their children not in a culture where the right to life is denied but rather in a culture where life is sacred.

Gianluca Petrazzi

The short film 15 Seconds evolves around the character of James, a condemned man who is denied the chance to prove his innocence. His story is common to that of many men and women who pass through the same ordeal. In the drafting of the script I privileged an intimate, subjective perspective. I tried as far as possible to immerse myself in such a tragic situation, a situation in which no one whether guilty or innocent should ever find himself.
I tried to explore those different and alternating states of the soul; fear, love, compassion, and the internal chaos of the condemned and of the spectators present at the execution. Those minutes just before the final act where past and present lose their significance and are replaced by “a time” which is conditioned and measured only by the law.
I wanted also to lay emphasis on the absurd fact of “knowing your hour” surrounded by the material executioners and the witnesses who, with their silence and indifference become in turn the accomplices of what is happening. They are us: citizens and witnesses to an exercise wanted and justified by “our own laws”. The death penalty is something people speak about more and more, an indication maybe that global awareness is changing, that the tendency to depict it as an exemplary punishment is slowly giving way to other different approaches of understanding and rehabilitation. My personal desire is that this first step in the approval of the Moratorium resolution by the United Nations will lead towards the total and universal abolition of the death penalty.
I would like to take this occasion to thank all those who in some way or another believed, participated and supported this project; the technical and artistic cast, and last but not least Sanmarco that made our presence here possible.

Luisa Morgantini

On 18 December 2007 the General Assembly of the United Nations voted in favour of a Universal Moratorium resolution of capital punishment in response to the plea for justice and respect of human dignity carried forward by men and women from all over the world and against the culture of vengeance and reprisal carried out by States who dehumanise our planet. I am proud of the prominent role Italy, and the European Union had in this occasion, more so as the commitment in favour of the Moratorium strengthens that coherence intrinsic to those principles on which our legal systems are founded. I am proud that the European Union parliament has given its patronage to the project 15 seconds demonstrating the necessity to continue sensibilizing public opinion on this subject. This short film that Raul Bova has so strongly wanted and produced, is an example of how popularity and intelligence represent an extraordinary means to inform people about human rights. More so in schools and among the younger generation who need a future of peace and
non- violence. The Moratorium is a fundamental step towards the abolition of the death penalty but there are still difficulties to overcome. The vote at the General Assembly of the United Nations showed some defections; on 192 countries,29 abstained and 54 voted against. Amongst the latter apart from China and Iran, the vote of the USA who see themselves as the paladins of democracy is very noticeable. Even Europe could do more by conditioning its privileged relations with those countries where the death penalty exists or who violate international law by putting pressure for the respect of human rights, the fundamental principles of the European Union. The vote on the Moratorium represents therefore a point of departure which must finally bring about a world free from crimes committed by states as well as any other threat such as torture and weapons of mass destruction, where the rights of all men and women are respected. I would like to express our thanks to Raoul Bova, to the production team of Sanmarco, to the director and to the actors and to those who in some way in their daily lives fight for the abolition of the death penalty and for a culture of justice and peace.

Hands Off Cain

Hands Off Cain is a non-profit association, founded in 1993 by the Radical Party. Its objective was to obtain a Moratorium on executions in the world, in view of the definitive abolition of of the death penalty. The name is a passage from the Bible where it isn’t only written “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, but also: “God put a mark on Cain so noone he met could kill him.” Today this is interpreted as the State cannot take the life of its citizens.
Regarding this objective, which is of huge human and civil importance, Hands Off Cain has managed to mobilise parliaments, governments and public opinion around the world. On December 18, 2007, fourteen years after its beginning, Hands Off Cain finally achieved the approval of the Resolution for the Universal Moratorium on capital punishment by the United Nations’ General Assembly. It was a historic victory for the entire world, and a victory for Italy, which had the worth to convince representative countries from all continents to support an initiative that was an important progression in the entire human rights system. With the vote in favour of the Moratorium, the United Nations affirmed the principle that the death penalty violates the sphere of personal rights, while its abolition contributes to the strengthening of human dignity. The UN vote drew a line for countries, both in the dream of non violence and in the administration of justice. Now, Hands Off Cain is committed to projects for the concrete application of the Moratorium on diverse fronts and in all cases of the death sentence: from Africa, where in the last few years there have been significant steps towards abolition, to Asia, the continent where almost all death sentences in the world are carried out... So that countries stop being Cain, both responsible for and a witness to this perversion, a perversion where life must defend itself with death.