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CANNES 2016 Italy

Pericle The Black and the others at Cannes

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- No films in the official competition. Representing Italian film is Stefano Mordini’s film in the Un Certain Regard section and a special screening of L'ultima spiaggia

Pericle The Black and the others at Cannes
Pericle The Black by Stefano Mordini

Whilst three Italians featured in competition last year, Sorrentino, Garrone and Moretti, there are no Italian films in the competition of this year’s 69th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off on 11 May. Representing Italian film, in the competitive Un Certain Regard section, is Pericle The Black [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefano Mordini
film profile
]
by Stefano Mordini starring Riccardo Scamarcio and produced by Buena Onda, which was founded by the actor with Valeria Golino and Viola Prestieri, along with the Dardenne brothers (Les Films du Fleuve) and French company Les Productions du Trésor with RAI Cinema. Among the special screenings of the Festival, on the other hand, will be L'ultima spiaggia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thanos Anastopoulos
film profile
]
by Thanos Anastopoulos and Davide Del Degan, and more surprises are in store from independent sections Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight, the line-ups for which are due to be announced in the next few days. There’s talk that Critics’ Week will feature Alessandro Comodin’s second film, I tempi felici verranno presto, whilst Like Crazy [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Paolo Virzì
film profile
]
by Paolo Virzì and Fiore [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Claudio Giovannesi
film profile
]
 by Claudio Giovannesi are expected to put in an appearance in Directors’ Fortnight. 

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Pericle The Black, which will be released in Italy by Bim Distribuzione (which is also distributing The Unknown Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
film profile
]
by the Dardenne brothers, which is being shown in competition), is the third film by Mordini, and is based on the book of the same name by Giuseppe Ferrandino, a publishing success story in both Italy and France (where it was published by Gallimard), which Abel Ferrara also tried to adapt for the big screen. The Tuscan director moved the story, which is set in Naples and Pescara in the book, to Liege and Calais. “A choice I made before the attacks by Isis”, the director pointed out. “When we started thinking about migration, we ended up in Wallonia, which drew the interest of the Dardenne brothers in getting involved in the project, and got big international producers on board to get the project off the ground”. Mordini explains, however, that there are no direct links between the story and real life, that it is a story suspended in time “in a community in which the presence of Italians is still very strong”. 

L'ultima spiaggia by Thanos Anastopoulos and Davide Del Degan, which will be subject to a special screening, is instead a co-production between Italy, Greece and France, and was born from a year spent on a popular beach in Trieste, Pedocin beach, where a wall 3 metres high separates the men from the women to this day. “A bizarre place, frequented by a specific type of person, which lends itself to portrayal through film”, explains Anastopoulos, who has lived in Trieste for many years and made the documentary with Del Degan, his debut feature film. L'ultima spiaggia is a co-production between Mansarda Production (Italy), Fantasia Ltd (Greece), and Arizona Productions (France) in collaboration with Rai Cinema and the support of Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission, the FVG Audiovisual Fund, the Greek Film Centre, and the Centre National du Cinéma et de l'image animée - Aide à la coproduction d'oeuvres cinématographiques franco-grecques. 

Finally two Italian short films will be screened at Cannes: Il silenzio by Farnoosh Samadi Frooshani and Ali Asgari (Kino Production) in the Official Competition and La santa che dorme by Laura Samani, which is in the running for the Cinéfondation.

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(Translated from Italian)

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