Twice Born

Twice Born follows Gemma, an Italian woman who travels to Sarajevo with her teenage son Pietro, sixteen years after the Bosnian War. The city is where Pietro's father, Diego, died, and where Gemma's life changed. As the two of them return, Gemma confronts memories of the siege and of her relationship with Diego, a photographer she met years earlier in Sarajevo, while trying to build a relationship with the son who never knew his father.

Sergio Castellitto directed and co-wrote the film, which adapts Margaret Mazzantini's novel and was produced across Spain, Italy and Croatia. Penélope Cruz plays Gemma, with Emile Hirsch as Diego and Saadet Işıl Aksoy as Aska; Castellitto's son Pietro appears as Pietro. The film runs 127 minutes and was made for about 13 million dollars.

Released in 2012, Twice Born sits within Castellitto's work as a director, following his earlier features. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.3 from around 18,000 votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 7.3, from roughly 479 votes. A film critics' rating of 4 out of 10 from 22 reviews places it well below the audience scores, a gap that suggests the response from viewers was considerably warmer than that of professional reviewers.