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"Comprising interviews with seven different men of varying rank about atrocities they committed (or ordered) during the First Liberian Civil War, this frank and frequently disturbing documentary examines the nature of modern violence and an essentialist concept of warfare. Their testimony, interspersed with snapshots of Liberia’s streets and mangrove trees as they currently exist, along with some terrifying video footage from the era, illustrate the ravages — and the inevitability — of humanity’s basest desire for conflict. Without falling into the sensationalist or simplistic, Lodoli and Tribbioli’s film is crucial viewing for our current age of extremism. ."

Film Society of Lincoln Center, NY, USA — May 2016

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"Hell on Earth. The phrase springs naturally to mind when describing the brutal madness in the dark Liberian mangroves. This is summarised with eerie calm in Fragment 53. Through a series of interviews with soldiers, generals and warlords who fought in Liberia’s civil war, artist Tribbioli and Lodoli captures the very essence and nature of war. The focus is not on the personal and historical context of the testimonies, which makes them applicable beyond the borders of Liberia. And it is this very discussion, about war as an innate part of human nature, that the filmmakers approach with unerring precision. Or, as Greek philosopher Heraclitus put it in his 53rd fragment: War is the father and king of all."

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Goteborg Film Festival, Sweeden  — Jan 2016​

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"According to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, war is a universal constant. The statues of war gods from different times and cultures, which appear before us in the first scene of 'Fragment 53', backs up the obscure thinker – and so do the seven former warlords from the civil war-torn Liberia, which in the rest of the film go to confession in an expressively restrai- ned delirium from the dark, Liberian mangrove forests. 'Fragment 53' is an extremely den- sely executed, research-based and formally organised study of not just Liberia's violent, mo- dern history, but of the nature and essence of war itself. The seven men share their cruel me- mories of the brutal orgies of violence of the 1990s with an almost aggressively apathetic di- rectness, which is punctured by precisely composed motifs of the landscapes, where we un- derstand that the by now forgotten horrors took place. A terrifying and hypnotic look at a kind of hell that is impossible to shake off. The Italian artist duo Carlo Gabriele Tribbioli and Federico Lodoli make a mark with their first full-length and deeply compelling film opus as a significant new voice in the contemporary field between documentary filmmaking and visual arts."

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CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, Denmark  — Nov 2015​