Roberto Minervini’s narrative debut “The Damned” revisits the U.S. Civil War in a cinema verite style. Minervini, who has helmed a slew of documentary films, deployed his nonfiction techniques for the feature that premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard program. Minervini won the Best Director award for “The Damned” at the festival.
Jeremiah Knupp, René W. Solomon, Cuyler Ballenger, Noah Carlson, Judah Carlson, Tim Carlson, and Bill Gehring are among the actors playing Civil War soldiers in the feature set during the winter of 1862. The official synopsis reads: “In the midst of the Civil War, the U.S. Army sends a company of volunteer soldiers to the western territories, with the task of patrolling the uncharted borderlands. As their mission ultimately changes course, the meaning behind their engagement begins to elude them.”
Minervini said in a press statement that “The Damned” sets out to undo the tropes of other war films.
“I’ve always had an issue with war movies because of the archetypes that are present in them: the idea of the just cause, good versus evil, revenge, heroism,” he said. “There’s never been an approach that I would call humane. Instead we have archetypes that propagate false ideas and beliefs about war. It’s crazy to me that people tend to trust a government — especially here in the U.S. but not only here — in matters of war and defense. War becomes an untouchable thing and the heroism of war becomes something sacred.”
“The Damned” also has a timeliness to it amid the current American political climate. “This film is heavily informed by my previous work, for sure, and by my experience of living in the South for more than a decade,” Minervini said. “It was a very conscious choice to go back to a moment where a lot of these roots were being planted: the great divide between North and South, Christianity, a kind of toxic masculinity. I wanted to understand how these issues persist, why there is still a lot of nostalgia for the Civil War, how that time shaped a sense of distrust toward institutions. I wanted the film to tie into the experience of people who were left in limbo during the war, in the middle of a transition from very conservative values to a new society: people who didn’t even know what to fight for. Many in the U.S. Army were mercenaries who enlisted without fully grasping the cause. With a country in shambles, people took sides, sometimes geographically, sometimes opportunistically. The approach here was to put a bunch of people in the middle of nowhere, or rather in the wilds of Montana, who are trying to figure out why they are there.”
“The Damned” is produced by Paolo Benzi for Okta Film, Denise Ping Lee and Roberto Minervini for Pulpa Film, and Paolo Del Brocco for Rai Cinema. Teresa Mannino, Jean-Alexandre Luciani, and Annette Fausboll executive produce.
“The Damned” opens in theaters May 16. Check out the trailer below.
