"Mothers in Shadow" chronicles the history of female psychiatric internment in Sardinia, from the "stufa de li pazzi" (madmen's stove) of Sant'Antonio Abate, displaying the "Book where women who come with madness are noted" (1803), through San Giovanni di Dio, up to Villa Clara through the free interpretation of data drawn from clinical records, reaching the threshold of the Basaglia reform (1978). The docufilm interweaves testimonies from witnesses with dramatic reconstructions that embody three emblematic stories: Maria, confined for an unaccepted love and deported to Volterra; Anna, deprived of her illegitimate child; Giovanna, a rebellious artist against conventions.
Through the exploration of Villa Clara's spaces, now Cittadella della Salute, and the alternation between Sardinian and Italian, the film reveals how internment was an instrument of social control rather than medical care. The voices in Sardinian language - an act of resistance - emerge in contrast with the coldness of clinical documents. A document that gathers testimonies before memory is definitively lost.