The Yara Case – Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: The New Sanpa Coming to Netflix, But It Will Be Controversial

Despite SanPa: Lights and shadows of San Patrignano was released on Netflix in 2021, Gianluca Black and his team collected material on Yara Gambirasio and the process that involved Max Bossetti already in 2017, consulting over 60 thousand pages of documents and viewing thousands of hours of video material, not to mention the findings and archives necessary to reconstruct the investigation. The result of that mammoth work is The Yara Case: Beyond Reasonable Doubta docuseries that is preparing to land on Netflix July 16th and that we are sure will be much discussed because it will lead the viewer to ask questions about a case about which we thought we knew everything and about which even today we think we have certainties denied in the trial in the face of the (almost) indifference of the media. Beyond Neri’s narrative construction, which succeeds as in SanPa to dismantle all our hypotheses as we approach the finale, after having seen the docuseries three things remain clear: that the prosecution made many mistakes in the trial; that the press has put so much pressure on this case that it has led the investigators to rush certain procedures, and that the sentence which condemned Max Bossetti to life imprisonment for the murder of Yara Gambirasio may have been pronounced without having dispelled all reasonable doubt, condition that Italian justice imposes both in the case of guilt and in the case of acquittal.

Through this docuseries produced by Forty-two and written by Neri himself together with Carlo G. Gabardini and Elena Grillone we are trying to reconstruct the investigation into the disappearance of the 13-year-old girl who disappeared one evening in November 2010 in Brembate di Sopra while she was walking the 700 meters that separated her home from the gym where she practiced rhythmic gymnastics. Thanks to the newspapers and television programs that gave wide relevance to the case, we still carry today the memory of what we thought had happened: from the discovery of the body in a grassy field near the gym at famous DNA extraction on Yara’s clothes which led the investigators to launch an extraordinary investigative operation to track down the identity of Unknown Onethat is, the girl’s alleged murderer. Unknown One who, through DNA comparison with more than 10 thousand matches, finally seemed to find a match in Massimo Bossetti, a worker who, while serving a life sentence, continues to declare himself innocent. The procedural truth is there for all to see, but no one has the absolute truth: Neri and the team simply tried to show what doesn’t add up and, above all, what hasn’t been investigated enough.

Yara Gambirasio

Beyond that revisionist fashion dusted off dangerously by the Hyenas for a case as controversial as that of Rosa Bazzi and Olindo Romano, we think that the most important thing that emerges from The Yara Case be one: It would be good if journalism stopped morbidly following news stories like this to allow justice to do its job without pressure and expectations. Seeing journalists chasing Yara Gambirasio’s parents, people of touching dignity and reserve, right into their car to capture a vaguely newsworthy quote and seeing the same journalists feed news that have not been verified – like the videos of Bossetti’s famous white van driving past the gym over and over again during the evening of the disappearance – it was chilling. In the end we do not know if Bossetti is actually guilty or not even though the Court of Cassation confirmed the sentence, but Our hope is that you will watch The Yara Case without thinking of having the truth in your pocket because Neri did not propose to open any trial, but simply tried to reflect on the fact that certain things that seemed apparently incontrovertible were often not. The key to everything is perhaps precisely this: the doubt which gives the docuseries its title. The doubt that often cannot be driven away and with which, especially today when we are so certain of everything, it is right that it remains every now and then.

The PM Letizia Ruggeri

The work that Quarantadue has done to reconstruct the case is undoubtedly remarkable, but the biggest risk is that now a good part of public opinion will feed the same fan base that has done so much harm to Bossetti – what about it? The Yara Case takes the floor by putting his face to it – and to his family towards other people involved in the affair, such as the PM Letizia Ruggeri and Yara’s teacher Silvia Brenawhose DNA was found in the cuff of the sweatshirt the girl was wearing on the night of the murder. Many things – such as the failure to compare with Bossetti’s DNA for definitive confirmation and the use of an expired kit for his first extraction – did not work as they should have. Suspicions remain that have led more than one person to think that, in order to put an end to a case that had been crowding the headlines and television programs for too long, everything was focused on one lead, leaving aside the famous «reasonable doubts» which, evidently, the judge herself had, considering that before issuing the sentence there was a debate lasting more than 11 hours in court. In short, in front of this docuseries, the feelings are many: dismay, disorientation, anger, even fear. Perhaps, however, beyond everything, it would be necessary to turn a thought to the Gambirasio familysealed inside a pain that has always avoided any form of spectacularization and that, after the release of The Yara Case, It could lead them to once again face demons and anxieties that never really went away.