The Loonies Strike Back

An unlikely team, an epic match, a no-holds-barred clash: 11 loonies against 11 nurses!

During the 1982 football World Cup, a legendary match is organised and played in Trieste.
Arturo Praz, a former patient of the asylum, wants a rematch of the last game between
the “loonies” and the nurses, won in 1978 by the nurses (in which Arturo didn’t play due
to a highly suspicious accident). With his niece, “Steno”, he rides his Vespa through the
streets of Trieste and the Karst plateau, visiting all his old teammates to persuade them
to play in the rematch now that they are free. It’s not easy to find and persuade them all:
they will make a fruitless expedition to the Venice cemetery, to the grave of Dr Basaglia,
who closed down the asylum; go up the Alpine valleys with a dog called Trotzky and a
guide who can’t laugh (or he falls into cataplexy); and take a ride on a sailing boat to a
sinister Yugoslavian prison, disguised as Carabinieri, to trade an old friend for sixty kilos
of coffee. The rematch, obviously, has to be played on the 11th of July 1982, while the
Italy-Germany Final is being played in Madrid. And there’s good reason to believe, like
their friend Bearzot, that this time they just might win.

• A story of friendship, sport, revenge, affection, and what it means to be free.
  A memorable portrayal of the world of misfits and those who are overlooked,
  who live on the margins of society, waiting for their rematch, and who finally
  take on the role of giants and mythical heroes, building dreams that have
  never even crossed others’ minds.
• Touches on the subject of psychiatry and cognitive problems with scientific
  and historical precision, but also in a comic tone.