Cronofobia, the psychological drama about suspended identity from Swiss director Francesco Rizzi, and staring Vinicio Marchioni, Giorgia Salari, Carla Cassola, along with Jun Ichikawa, will have its North American premiere at the 23rd Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. The film will screen Saturday August 10, in The Vets Cinematheque, Rhode Island Film Festival – Flickers 2019 in its original language, Italian, with English subtitles.

Francesco Rizzi’s debut feature film has won multiple awards, including Special Jury Prize for First Feature at Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) in Tallinn (Estonia); Best Screenplay and Best Director at May Ophüls Preis in Saarbrücken (Germany), along with two awards for Best Actor for Vinicio Marchioni in Italy (Festival Lecce and Ischia).

In Cronofobia, Suter is a mysterious and solitary man, constantly in motion, escaping his true self. During the day, he travels through Switzerland, creating new identities and evaluating the quality of customer service in luxury stores and hotel rooms incognito – while at night, he secretly observes the life of another lonely person: Anna, a woman struggling with a complicated form of grief. After she discovers his obsession with her, a strange relationship arises between the two: Suter begins to impersonate Anna’s dead husband and the two isolated souls find a way to develop a peculiar kind of intimacy. But this fragile balance is soon destroyed, when Anna finds out about Suter’s dark secret: he played a significant role in the circumstances that pushed her husband to commit suicide. In the end, Suter will have to sacrifice his feelings in order to truly find himself.