After the great success of The Offline (2021) and Before the Day After (2024), low-budget independent films awarded worldwide, director, writer, and actor Eduardo Cocciardo returns with a new feature film titled In the Bunker, scheduled to be filmed on the island of Ischia in the autumn of 2026.
The project appears highly captivating and, if possible, even more ambitious, both from a cinematic and a production standpoint. The director clearly intends to challenge the Italian production system, which he believes is dominated by a select few and negatively influenced by social-media and television language, leading to stories that often resemble one another and fail to delve deeply into the complex reality of our times.
In this scenario, the only hope seems to lie in independent cinema, which can truly offer a free perspective on the world, beyond any fiction or compromise orchestrated by those who pull the strings of communication. Art, performance, and cinema should, by their very nature, be the ultimate expressions of truth. Yet, this is not always the case. The language of cinema is often tamed, demagogic, and politically correct, but not genuinely authentic.
Thus, every story that tries to deviate from this state of things inevitably takes on a “political” value, re-examining not only cinematic practices but also the entire social system. However, In the Bunker mainly aims to mark a break from the narrative conventions of commercial cinema. It is not merely a matter of visual experimentation, but rather a set of narrative ideas which we won’t fully reveal here to avoid spoilers that completely overturn the clichés of conventional, especially Italian, filmmaking.
A symbolic film? In some ways, yes because beneath the surface story lie deeper intentions that challenge the usual ways audiences approach a film. Drama, thriller, comedy, science fiction “In the Bunker” is a cinematic work that will move you deeply, turning the familiar world upside down, because after watching it, nothing will ever be the same again.
A mysterious villa hidden in the heart of a botanical garden. A group of guests fleeing from a troubled past. Two quarrelsome brothers willing to host them as long as they pretend to be their relatives. Chiara arrives in the middle of the night and soon begins to wonder whether her life has just ended or is only about to begin.
The villa becomes a place outside of time, a refuge for characters escaping the evils of the modern world: a woman with a violent past, a child named Amir and the elderly nurse who saved his life in a field hospital, a young couple bullied by the inhabitants of a small provincial town, a young intellectual struggling to process his partner’s suicide, and a man who narrowly survived a car accident after watching his marriage collapse. Meanwhile, over the world looms the threat of an imminent nuclear war.
We won’t reveal more, because cinema should never be told, but rather seen, without preconceptions. Yet it’s clear that beneath the surface narrative the house, the fugitives, the two clumsy, bickering brothers lie far deeper intentions. Gradually, the story reveals itself as a grand metaphor for the contemporary world, increasingly devoid of values, condemned to injustices, misunderstandings, and conflicts that seem beyond repair clinging to ever narrower mindsets and perhaps teetering on the brink of nuclear war.
The Bunker is the ultimate refuge from pain the primordial place, the final harbor where everything converges, finds meaning, and seeks protection. In a world where racial, religious, and territorial conflicts are re-emerging with alarming force, In the Bunker seeks to reflect on the destiny of humanity and on the urgent need to reconsider one simple but essential truth: that we are all children of the same mother a vast golden spiral encompassing the present, the past, and the future.
To bring this film to life, given the production challenges mentioned above, Eduardo Cocciardo has launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Italian platform Produzioni dal Basso. The director invites the public to support the project by becoming official partners of the film. Anyone wishing to contribute, even with a symbolic donation, can do so by clicking the following link:
https://www.produzionidalbasso.com/project/nel-bunker-un-film-per-salvare-il-mondo
