Di Robilant starts shooting Mare piccolo

by Camillo de Marco

29/09/2008 - Shooting kicks off today in Taranto on Alessandro di Robilant’s Mare piccolo (“Small Sea”), a story of pain, love and hope in the Italian city "of two seas". Production will last six weeks.

Produced by Marco Donati for Overlook Production and RAI Cinema – with the participation of the Apulia Film Commission, the Province of Taranto, Municipality of Taranto, Taranto Film Commission – the film was written by Andrea Cotti and Leonardo Fasoli from Cotti’s book Stupido and is set entirely in Taranto.

Tiziano (debut actor Giulio Beranek) is a maladjusted boy who lives in a “border” neighbourhood. A poor student, his school attendance is even poorer. He has a family full of problems, he does odd jobs for local boss Tonio (Michele Riondino, of Daniele Vicari’s Il passato è una terra straniera, which will screen at the upcoming Rome International Film Festival), and only dreams of leaving. His future seems doomed, however – all the more so when he ends up in a juvenile detention centre.

But Tiziano is not alone: he has the detention centre guard (Giorgio Colangeli, David winner for The Salty Air [trailer]), his Italian teacher (Valentina Carnelutti, Quiet Chaos [trailer, film focus]), his girlfriend (Selenia Orzella) and his mother (Anna Ferruzzo).

For di Robilant (a Berlinale winner for Il giudice ragazzino), Mare piccolo marks a return to filmmaking five years after Forever. "I chose this film because I am very drawn to social stories about the forgotten", says the director, "and Taranto is a forgotten, profoundly wounded city, with a dramatic employment reality. The only possible jobs are at the Ilva steel mill, from which people come out almost always gravely ill. Yet despite that, in the Paolo VI neighbourhood I found a surprising humanity full of life and solidarity and I met youths who, if only they had the chance, could excel in any field".

(Translated from Italian)