11/03/2009

Following up Don’t Move of 2004, real-life and artistic couple Sergio Castellitto, the actor-director, and Margaret Mazzantini, the writer-actress, have announced a new film adaptation, of Venuto al Mondo, the latter’s latest book, which has sold over 300,000 copies in Italy since November.

Castellitto’s co-star in Don’t Move, Penélope Cruz, could also star in his latest project, about a woman named Gemma who travels with her 16-year-old son Pietro to Sarajevo, where she meets Bosnian poet Gojko during the recent war. "I won’t act in the film, at least not in the lead,” said Castellitto, "because it’s a story about young people. I met with Penelope a few days before she won the Oscar. We’ll see if she accepts".

Besides directing it, Castellitto will co-produce the film with Roberto Cicutto and Luigi Musini (On My Own). According to the director, both the writing of the book and its screenplay were hard but wonderful processes. "Cinema [writing] is about rearranging and cutting while the book, which is 530 pages, is complex”, he said. “Like the book, the film spans from 1982 to today. It is a lasso of time in which numerous things took place, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the end of Communism, to the war that torn Yugoslavia apart, and even Europe".

(Translated from Italian)