Calibro 45

A roar, and the 45-caliber bullet is launched into the dark. Maybe he'll hit his target, maybe he'll get lost, maybe he'll be stopped before reaching his destination. This is what a war envoy is like: a bullet fired in the chaos of a conflict, carried away by the unpredictability of events, always exposed to the risk of being diverted, manipulated, blocked, in an attempt to reach its target of truth.

This is where the Fixer. The local middleman, whom journalists use to delve into lands gutted by conflicts. Because behind every report from a war zone there is an invisible work made of mediations, expectations, compromises. There are those who translate not only languages, but also contexts, codes, unwritten rules. The Fixer He is the interpreter of an unknown world to those who intend to describe it, and tell it. It facilitates access to a reality that would otherwise remain impenetrable for those arriving from outside. It is the barrel that channels the bullet, and the wind that accompanies its trajectory towards the heart of horror.

Afterward Sessanta Decibl, with Calibro 45 (bullet emblem of contemporary war, associated both with regular armies and with militias and mercenaries, historically linked to conflicts that have involved the entire world) Italo Carmignani once again brings his experience as a journalist to the stage, telling the stories of those journalists who have gone through the wars of our time — and of the fixers who have made his profession possible. From Bosnia to Iraq, from Afghanistan to Ukraine, passing through Arab springs and forgotten wars, he will cross the contradictions of an increasingly fast journalism, increasingly dependent on indirect sources, increasingly exposed to manipulation.

How much is left, today, of the romantic idea of the correspondent who seeks the truth on the ground? And how much, on the other hand, is filtered by those who, that field, know him better than him?

A very fast and mid-air journey, an investigation into who informs and who helps to inform, on the uncertain border between witness and accomplice, between mediation and censorship. Between what you see, and what you choose to tell. Inside the dark heart of a war.