Ilaria's Sins

Ilaria's Sins

Bruce Von Stiers

Ilaria Malvezzi has done theater and supporting roles in several feature films. She has also had lead or supporting roles in several short films.

In addition to acting, Ilaria is also a screenwriter and producer.

One of the latest projects that Ilaria is involved in is a short film titled Sins. IIlaria wrote the screenplay for the film and co-produced it. It is a thriller and was initially developed as a proof of concept film for a feature film. Ilaria is currently working with Mark Henry Johnson, of HBO's The Deuce, on the development of the feature.

The film takes place in a countryside area of New York during the 1960's. The main characters are Nina, her daughter Annabel, and a mysterious young man named Marco.

The film opens up with Nina outside hanging up the washing. Annabel comes to talk to her, telling her mom that she will just love Marco. Ilaria plays the mother, Nina. Casey Hartnett plays the daughter Annabel. Casey's credits include the film What We Found and the series Theater, Interrupted and The Usual

Nina is a little leery of the new boyfriend. She came from Italy and supposedly so has Marco. As Ilaria is actually from Italy, the accent and mannerisms are pretty accurate. Marco is played by Marco Lo Chiatio, who has been in a couple of other short films.

The film is intended to be a noir thriller. As such, it was filmed in black and white to give it an authentic noir feel. The director for the film is Jeremiah Kipp. Some films he's directed include Black Wake and Slapface.

Other people involved in the film were Katie Dillon who did the editing, Rob Alicia, who co-produced the film with Ilaria and Dominick Sivilli, who did the cinematography. Music in the film was done by Giovanni Spinelli and Evan Joseph was the sound designer.

At dinner, it is learned that Marco came from Naples, Italy to work at his uncle's garage and go to college to learn mechanical engineering.

But later, it seems that Marco might be interested in more than just Annabel. Does he have a thing for Nina too? One thing leads to another and then later, Nina and Marco get together for a torrid one time encounter. But is this all there is?

Marco and Nina end up keeping their affair going. But all the while he is still romancing Annabel. Which causes Nina to become very jealous.

I was sure there was going to be a twist or something stark in the film. After all, this was a noir film. I kept thinking different of plot angles. Was Nina going to kill Annabel in a fit of jealous rage? Was she going to kill Marco? Was Marco going to kill Annabel to be with Nina? Was he going to kill off Nina to be with Annabel? I was actually a bit surprised by what happened at the end.

I have watched a lot of noir films. Some are okay and some are pretty good. Sins is definitely one of the better noir films. It hits major points of a noir film, black and white filming, people involved in other than ordinary circumstances and at least one incident of the non-legal variety. The acting was well done and the characters believable.

Sins was a selection at this past month's Garden State Film Festival. There are additional festivals that the film will be shown at, but the venues and dates have not been secured yet. But the film is available on demand at the WeShort, a site dedicated to short films. The link for that site is https://weshort.com/app/main?cid=833

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