25/02/2011

Coming out March 4 on 300 prints through Medusa, La vita facile [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“The Easy Life”) by Lucio Pellegrini (Figli delle stelle [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Tandem), sees the return to Stefano Accorsi, after starring in last year’s Kiss Me Again [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Gabriele Muccino. The Italian actor, who for years has been living in France, will soon make his directorial debut with the thriller Versus, the screenplay of which he’s writing with the creative duo behind Derrière les murs, Pascal Sid and Julien Lacombe.

Accorsi is also writing a second film, Il Colpo, to be directed by Gabriele Muccino and produced by Fandango’s Domenico Procacci.

The latter is also producer of La vita facile, in which Accorsi is flanked by two Kiss Me Again co-stars, Pierfrancesco Favino and Vittoria Puccini. In Pellegrini’s film, Accorsi plays Luca, an idealist and sensitive doctor who with great effort runs a humanitarian hospital in Africa. He is joined for a while by his old friend Mario (Favino), a successful surgeon in Rome who’s become rich working in private clinics.

They’re soon joined by Mario's wife Ginevra (Puccini), who reveals the real reason behind her husband’s flight from Italy: a judicial investigation regarding corrupt practices in the health industry.

The film is a bitter comedy, with Favino obviously following in the footsteps of Alberto Sordi and Nino Manfredi from the 1960s and 70s comedies that were snapshots of Italians’ vices and virtues.

"I like experimenting, exploring genres with a personal style", said the director during the film’s press conference. "Il film doesn’t look at Africa from a consolatory perspective and depicts characters with various nuances. They’re negative but they do have aspects of humanity. Luca and Mario are two faces of a country that today is divided over everything. One of them refused to play by the rules, the other made compromises and came out on top. They’re 40-year-old who still depend on their fathers, who in turn influence their choices and destinies, those 70-year-old fathers who still today control Italy".

On the current domination of comedies at the Italian box office, Procacci says he’s prudent: "That can’t be the only way to tell a story, being in tune with audiences doesn’t last forever. The success of comedies is dangerous, it’s inducing the government to state that film in general can do without public funds ".

(Translated from Italian)