DIRECTOR/EDITOR
The Time My Grandmother Was Held Hostage by Bank Robbers
A film by Rosella Tursi
One Thursday afternoon in 1983, my grandmother Rosa Tursi, a 72-year-old Italian immigrant, was watching her favorite soap opera in her living room when bank robbers burst into her ground-floor Montreal apartment and took her hostage—at least according to my family. We’ve been telling this story for years. But did this really happen as we remember it? Have we all been exaggerating? Or is the reality even wilder than we ever could have imagined? In the short documentary The Time My Grandmother Was Held Hostage by Bank Robbers, I join members of my family to re-tell the story to get to the truth. Along the way, a shocking discovery casts a whole new light on the incident.

Winner Best Documentary Short at HollyShorts 2026
World Premiere at DOC NYC 2025
TRAILER

Festival screenings

HollyShorts, Los Ángeles, California

Aspen Shortsfest, Colorado

DOC NYC, New York

Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Montana
Upcoming screenings:
-
Atlantic International Film Festival, Halifax, Nova Scotia
-
Coronado Island Film Festival, California
-
Ridgway Independent Film Festival, Colorado
-
others to be announced