07/10/2011

"After several years it’s back to square one". If these words come from the master of Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor, The Dreamers [+see also:
trailer
interview: Bernardo Bertolucci
film profile], there must be something in them. Because Bernardo Bertolucci, who on Monday October 10 starts shooting his new film Io e te in Rome, certainly has, at gone 71, the ability to renew himself.

Fresh from Lifetime Achievement Golden Palm at the latest Cannes Film Festival (he had received the Lifetime Achievement Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2007) Bertolucci decided to take on a screen adaptation of 45 year-old Niccolò Ammaniti’s novel by the same title.

Written by the director himself together with Niccolò Ammaniti, Umberto Contarello and Francesca Marciano, Io e te tells the story of Lorenzo, a solitary fourteen-year-old who has a problematic relationship with his family and with the world that surrounds him, who chooses to spend the ski holiday week hidden in the cellar of his house.

"It’s the first time I make a film from a story that half a million people have just read or are still reading. I am wondering whether that cellar contains any secrets that Ammaniti has hidden away from us", Bertolucci declared.

The young stars Bertolucci chose from hundreds of candidates, after months of auditions, are Jacopo Olmo Antinori (pictured), who plays Lorenzo, and Tea Falco (pictured), who will be Olivia, the fragile and rebellious step sister, who turns up in her brothers hiding place to disturb the peace.

The film is produced by Fiction and Mario Gianani in collaboration with Medusa Film, who will take care of distribution in Italy. International Distribution will be taken care of by Jeremy Thomas’ HanWay Films. Alongside Bertolucci,Fabio Cianchetti, photography, Metka Kosak, costumes, Jean Rabasse, scenes, Jacopo Quadri, editing.

(Translated from Italian)