Placido to star in and co-produce Itaker, to be shot in Romania

by Stefan Dobroiu

22/10/2010 - Michele Placido will star in the new film Itaker, which he will also co-produce with leading Romanian production company Mandragora (Aurora [trailer], Morgen [trailer]). Itaker is directed by Toni Trupia, screenwriter, among other films, on Placido's latest directorial foray, Vallanzasca [trailer], about the life of Milanese mobster Renato Vallanzasca, which premiered in September at Venice.

During a press conference held in Thursday in Bucharest, Placido said Itaker is inspired by the wave of Italian immigrants who left for Germany in the 1960s. The film centres on a young boy from northern Italy, who sets on a journey to discover the whereabouts of his father, who left Italy for a better life in Germany.

According to the actor-director, Itaker (the derogatory name the Germans gave the Italian immigrants) will be received with the same reticence in Italy as Bobby Paunescu’s Francesca [trailer], on Italian racism against Romanian workers in Italy. Paunescu will co-produce Itaker.

“Italian politicians have a very short memory. Less than four decades ago, people from northern Italy went to work in Germany and suffered because of the same racism the Romanian and Albanian workers have to bear with today”, said Placido. The actor-director confessed he's interested in the project also because his grandfather and cousins emigrated in the past.

The film will go into pre-production in March, with Placido playing an Italian gangster ready do to anything to survive in Germany. Monica Barladeanu, the lead in Francesca, who also appeared in Vallanzasca, will have an important part in the new film according to Placido, who added that the film would be lensed mainly in Romania.

Bavaria Film is also a co-producer on the project.