Experiencing Interruptions?

The Remains of Love

Thirty years after a night that changed their lives, Francesco and Angelo meet again by chance on the dunes of Capocotta, a historic queer haven on the Roman coast. As they confront the silence and misunderstandings that kept them apart, fragments of their first love resurface with the force of something unfinished. Shot in a raw, semi-documentary style, The Remains of Love is an intimate exploration of memory, time, and the indelible mark left by a single night of truth.

  • Fabrizio Funari
    Director
  • Fabrizio Funari
    Writer
  • Ganimede Film
    Producer
  • Daniele Blando
    Key Cast
    "Francesco"
  • Marco Tempera
    Key Cast
    "Angelo"
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    I Resti dell'Amore
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Romance, Queer, Gay, Drama, Mokumentary
  • Runtime:
    13 minutes 15 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 10, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    2,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Italy
  • Country of Filming:
    Italy
  • Language:
    Italian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Fabrizio Funari

I am an Italian-born screenwriter and director based between Paris and Barcelona. My work often explores queerness, memory, and identity through intimate, boundary-pushing narratives. After years of writing for theatre and opera, I brought the same focus on character and emotion into film.

My short films have screened internationally and received awards, including A Portrait of the Artist as an Older Woman with iconic actress Pia Morra. In 2022, I was selected for the Atelier Renoir Screenwriting Residency in Rome, and I am currently developing my debut feature. Alongside my film work, I continue to collaborate across disciplines, drawing from theatre and opera to craft stories that are raw, human, and emotionally resonant. In 2025, I wrote and directed my first short-film called "The Remains of Love".

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Director Statement

I Resti dell'Amore was born from a desire to explore how memory, desire, and time shape queer lives. I wanted to tell a story about a love that never fully happened, yet left a mark so deep it still vibrates decades later.

The dunes of Capocotta are not just a backdrop; they are a historic queer space in Italy, a place of freedom and resistance, where generations of men have met, hidden, desired, and discovered themselves. Setting the reunion of Francesco and Angelo there was, for me, a way of acknowledging that queer history often survives in the margins, in places that were never meant to be preserved, but that nevertheless hold our memories.

I chose a raw, semi-documentary style - handheld camera, natural light, no artifice - because I wanted the audience to feel as if they had stumbled upon something fragile, intimate, and real. This aesthetic choice mirrors the way queer stories have often had to be pieced together from fragments, whispers, and personal testimonies.

At its core, the film is about silence: the silence of families, of missed phone calls, of promises broken not by choice but by circumstance. It is also about how desire can be both fleeting and indelible, how one night can change the way we see the world forever.

For me, this story is about how, especially within a queer perspective, a special bond or a fleeting encounter can spark something profound inside us - a light that pushes us to recognize who we are, to live more authentically, and to accept ourselves even in the face of silence, fear, or oppression. Queer first loves, carry this transformative power: they tell us that we are not alone, that our desires are real and valid, and that from that moment on, the world can never look the same again.

Yet, I don’t see I Resti dell’Amore as just a queer story, but as a universal one. We all carry the weight of unfinished loves, of things unsaid, of roads not taken. Through Francesco and Angelo, I wanted to ask: what remains of love after thirty years of absence? And can two people, meeting again in the place where it all began, find a fragment of truth - or perhaps even a new beginning?