Presented this week at Rome’s MIA Market (6–10 October), The Eighth Day (in Italian, L’ottavo giorno) is a 75-minute feature documentary directed by Sabrina Varani and produced by Tv2000. Set during the Catholic Jubilee Year of 2025, the protagonists of this story are the homeless men and women living on the margins, whose stories are not so different from our own.
“In the background, a quiet humanity moves forward, step by step, toward the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica,” read the project notes. “In this ongoing dialogue of light and shadow, of falling and redemption, of fragility and hope, a threshold is crossed — not just a sacred one, but the threshold of the present self-ushering in a new beginning: the Eighth Day.”
“The Eighth Day is unique because it portrays the Jubilee as a journey of rebirth that speaks to the heart of contemporary humanity,” Tv2000 Content Acquisition and Programming Anna De Simone explains. “Through authentic stories of the homeless, former inmates, volunteers, professionals, and artists, it shows how the pilgrimage to the Holy Door becomes a path of hope, reconciliation, and inner transformation.”
The documentary weaves together the spiritual dimension of the Jubilee with the real challenges of modern life, revealing the universal meaning of the ‘Eighth Day’: “the day of re-creation and of a hope that never disappoints,” the notes further explain.
The project stems from what Varani and her collaborators define as a deep ethical imperative — to portray marginality with absolute respect, without resorting to sensationalism.
Tv2000, which was launched in 1998 under the name Sat 2000, is an Italy-based broadcasting network that airs Roman Catholic-themed programming. It is available on digital terrestrial television in Italy and is owned by the Italian Episcopal Conference, the assembly of the Catholic bishops of Italy.
Director Sabrina Varani felt a strong need to preserve the dignity of the protagonists, moving beyond the common tendency to look away from the homeless. “Filming became a journey to overcome an initial discomfort — the feeling of invading someone else’s space — gradually transforming distance into closeness,” she writes.
“The relationship nurtured with the protagonists profoundly changed her perspective, allowing the director to see them not as figures on the margins, but as the center of a ceaseless galaxy of ordinary human activity,” Tv2000’s De Simone reveals. “Their everyday lives, stripped of the superfluous and reduced to a single suitcase, and their words — redefined by loss and deprivation — appeared more real and profound than any supposed representation of society.”
The primary cinematic approach of The Eighth Day is observational, favouring intimacy over commentary. Its aesthetic choices are visually expressed through a low, intimate gaze. The director sat alongside the protagonists, lowering the camera height to eliminate hierarchies and to focus on the small gestures that make up their daily lives. “The goal is to capture the essence of the human being,” De Simone notes.
The use of St Peter’s Square is not accidental. This extraordinary location — with its perfect lines, historical significance, and the spiritual weight of the crowds — serves as an almost theatrical backdrop. Its visual contrast with the lives of the protagonists makes their experience even more powerful and moving.
“Ultimately, the docufilm becomes a reflection on the human condition — a slow journey toward the awareness that the distance between being inside or outside of society is, in truth, only a matter of more or less favourable details,” De Simone observes.
With production now completed, The Eighth Day is looking for international partners and opportunities for worldwide rights sales.
By showing the Jubilee through the lens of those who live its message most profoundly — the poor, the vulnerable, the reborn — Sabrina Varani’s documentary seeks to turn a sacred ritual into a universal metaphor for renewal, compassion, and hope.
