Eleven-year-old Salvo lives with his aunt and uncle in the alpine Trentino region. On the day of his First Communion, while he’s playing ball with his friends, a man suddenly appears on the edge of the field: his father Vincenzo. Salvo barely recognizes him, since he hasn’t seen him for seven years, since the Carabinieri had come to their house in Puglia and taken him away. Now Vincenzo’s done his time and says he’d like to spend a few days with his son. On the long drive south they make odd encounters and memories emerge, as Salvo gets to know his father better, but will have to reckon with his secrets and his past.

"Il ladro di giorni is the story of an encounter between a child just starting out in life and a man who comes back to life after years in prison. A child who has almost forgotten he has a father, and a father who hardly recognizes the child who is his son. Just as in every love story, they don’t trust one another at first. Choosing to trust each other is an act of courage, like diving off a cliff. It’s a courage that big-headed Vincenzo tries to teach his son, until he finds himself getting the lessons, himself being the child of the two. Il ladro di giorni is also a journey into Vincenzo’s criminal past, as he searches for the mysterious individual who had betrayed him years earlier and put all this distance between father and son. Vendetta is a powerful instinct: it clouds your judgment, sucks you back into time you’ve lost and love you’ve lost, and dims that hope that had just begun to shine again. Little Salvo wants to be loved by this father who is a stranger to him, so much that he too will walk the thin line between good and evil, between the good guys and the bad guys. Up to the moment that Vincenzo finally decides to be a man." [Guido Lombardi]