19/10/2012 - The Italian maestro’s latest film, presented in the out of competition section in Cannes, is set to come out on 25 October in 300 copies, 1 minute and 25 seconds shorter

A shorter version, with 1 minute and 25 seconds cut out of it, compared to its Cannes version last May (read the interview), Me and You [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Bernardo Bertolucci is finally coming out in Italy on October 25 in 300 copies. The release was controversially pushed back by five months. “The film was sent to Cannes at the last moment,” explained Gianpaolo Letta from Medusa, the film’s distributors, "and in order to be released to the public, the film needed a few corrections.”

International sales will wait to see how well the film does domestically. “Italian cinema has not been doing well these past few seasons. We are hoping to reverse the trend,” explained the director in Rome. "Jacopo Olmo Antinori has the eyes of a vampire in the film’s ads", he went on to joke, "maybe that’ll prove useful to us.”

The recent winner of a Career Award from the European Film Academy (Bertolucci will be a guest of honour at the 25th European Film Awards on 1 December 2012 in Malta), the Italian film maestro announced his return to the director’s seat, despite his illness which keeps him in a wheel chair.

“Thanks to this film, nine years after my last one (The Dreamers), when I thought I would never be able to make another one, I have started living again. And now I quite like it. I already have my next project in mind.”

The director also had a few words on the architectural constraints he was faced with, an argument he recently rose with Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno. "Rome is a forbidden city. Historical neighbourhoods in the capital city, like Trastevere, are a real battle field for people like me. It’s impossible to move around. I have a duty to talk about it, because my voice is more listened to.”

Me and You, a story of two half brothers who meet again, was dedicated to Giuseppe Bertolucci, the maestro’s brother, also a director and screenwriter, who died last June.

(Translated from Italian)