ORevery day that separates Giulia Cecchettin from her family It’s a day you won’t forget. It is a time that does not flow, but is stratified, becoming form. And this very matter, painful and always alive, will become cinematic narration. In 2026, the story of the feminicide of the twenty-two year old will be told in the film “If I don’t come back tomorrow”directed by Paola Randi and based on book “Dear Giulia”written by his father Gino Cecchettin with Marco Franzoso. A title that is not just an expression, but a thin line between what should be normal and what should never happen.
If I don’t come back tomorrowa film born from mourning, but talks about us
Produced by Notorious Pictures, the film will not be a judicial chronicle nor a cold reconstruction. It will be, in the director’s intentions, a work that questions the present. Paola Randi, already author of films such as Tito and the aliens And The Befana Comes at Night II – The originsco-wrote the screenplay with Lisa Nur Sultan, known for her work on the language of intimacy and memory. The project is still in its embryonic stage: the name of the actress who will play Giulia is not known, nor are the details of the cast.
But the narrative heart is clear: telling the story of a young woman killed by her ex-boyfriend, Filippo Turetta, sentenced to life imprisonment, without indulging in the voyeurism of pain. The film takes its title from a phrase that Giulia had written in a message, but “if I don’t come back tomorrow” is a statement that many women may have thought and not said. Bringing her to the big screen means amplifying that voice, give it substance, give it time.
The Giulia Cecchettin Foundation: educating to prevent
Behind the film, there is work that doesn’t stop at the narrative. Gino Cecchettin, Giulia’s father, transformed mourning into civil action. Guest of Fabio Fazio on “Che tempo che fa” last Sunday, he spoke again about his commitment after the tragic death of his daughter Giulia and the plans of the Giulia Cecchettin Foundationcreated together with her children Elena and Davide with the aim to promote gender equality and combat violence against women.
“If I don’t come back tomorrow” is the title of the film that will tell the story of Giulia Cecchettin. It will be released in 2026
The relationship with pain
During the interview, he spoke with great sincerity and delicacy about his relationship with pain: he defined it as “a friend”, a tool that helps him stay close to his loved ones and keep Giulia’s memory alive. He spoke about his daughter Elena’s graduation, confessing his joy for his daughter and his pain for Giulia’s absence at that important moment. Cecchettin then recalled, the importance of talking about issues such as gender violence and inequalityarguing that the foundation’s work represents a concrete contribution to keeping Giulia’s values alive.
Cinema, also a space of responsibility
“If I Don’t Come Back Tomorrow” will not just be a film. In an Italy where feminicide is still a daily reality, bringing Giulia’s story to the cinema means asking the public not to look elsewhere. It is not a question of making violence spectacular, but of making it visible in its mechanisms, in its omissions, in its silences.
The fact that neither Filippo Turetta nor the Prosecutor’s Office appealed the life sentence closes the judicial chapter, but opens the social one. And cinema, in this case, becomes responsibility. It is the place where pain, even if shared, cannot be trivialized and where memory can become action. And where, perhaps, we can learn to recognize that message, “If I don’t come back tomorrow”, before it’s too late.