Iddu, at Venice 81: ‘The tragic and grotesque world of Matteo Messina Denaro’
Those first ‘pizzini’ that began circulating years before the disappearance of Matteo Messina Denaro inspired directors and screenwriters Antonio Piazza and Fabio Grassadonia (Sicilian Ghost Story, 2017) in the first conception of a film on the figure, still underestimated at the time, of one of Cosa Nostra’s most prominent bosses. Iddu, their third film, was presented in competition at the 81st Venice Film Festival yesterday.
‘Iddu manages to create no fascination with that world,’ Elio Germano emphasises, ‘They are all highly mediocre characters with their human baseness.
‘The story of Matteo Messina Denaro is the story of the perfect son. The father immediately recognised in the child his natural heir, even though he was not the first-born,’ explains Gassadonia.’ He represents that pathological form of patriarchy that has blocked the civil development of specific territories and generated dehumanised children. For us, this was the heart of the matter‘.
Iddu offers a new perspective on the criminal monster, ‘disturbing, but which serves to break out of the stereotype,’ Elio Germano recounts. ‘It is the pathology of Italians who feel they have more rights than others to have rights.
Toni Servillo recounts: ‘When I read the script, I found everything so far-fetched that a fascinating job as an actor opened up. My character, Catello, gives the film a grotesque character. Still, in the intentions of the two directors, we are far from the innocuous atmosphere of farce. Still, we are in the biting atmosphere of the grotesque, where the grotesque intensifies the interpretation of reality to give a thicker sign of the character of that reality we are dealing with so that behind the façade of the senseless ridiculousness of certain situations, we can grasp the tragic‘.
FROM VENICE TO STREAMING: Lion Raz: ‘First Soda, then Fauda 5‘
The actor who plays Doron in the hit Netflix series stars in a film set on 1950s kibbutzim, between memory and tears, which premiered in Venice
‘There will be a fifth season of Fauda. We are writing it. The terrible, dramatic current events that we are experiencing also demand it’. It was revealed by Lion Raz, Fauda’s Doron, the internationally best-known Israeli actor, who landed on the Lido for a world premiere held on the sidelines of the Venice Film Festival, Soda by Erez Tadmor, in which the Fauda star is the protagonist, with actress Rotem Sela next to him. The film, based on a true story set in 1956 in Israel, sees Sela in the role of a seamstress suspected of being a kapo during the Shoah and Raz as Shalom, a former partisan who falls in love with the seamstress, while rumours multiply around her, putting even Shalom in crisis. The story is similar to that experienced by the director’s father, a Jewish partisan during the Second World War who moved to Israel. ‘It is difficult to judge the character played by Sela,’ said Raz,’ who had to choose between collaborating or seeing his children die. Raz, who is also the creator and producer of Fauda, as well as other internationally successful stories from Hit & Run to Ghost of Beirut, is a former member of the Israeli special forces, which he enlisted after seeing his fiancée die in an assassination attempt. His view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is considered unorthodox in his country, where, more than once, criticism of Fauda has been voiced by sections of the right wing. For him, the difference between the albeit dramatic period covered in the film and today is, above all, one: ‘Back then there was still hope for a better future, today there is not. On how to end the bloody Israeli occupation of Gaza following the Hamas massacres on 7 October, he has a simple recipe: ‘Just release the Israeli hostages. And the war will end.
TECLA INSOLIA E MARTINA WIN THE NEW IMAIE TALENT AWARD
Two promising and appreciated actresses at Venice 81 won the New IMAIE Talent Award, a collateral prize of the Festival: they are Tecla Insolia for Familia (Orizzonti) and Martina Scrinzi for Vermiglio (Concorso). They were selected by the SNGCI and SNCCI, chaired respectively by Laura Delli Colli and Cristiana Paternò. Godmother of this edition of the awards, the tenth, was Teresa Saponangelo.
JOKER AND IDDU AMONG WINNERS OF SOUNDTRACK STARS AWARD
The soundtrack of Joker: Folie à deux, edited by Hildur Guònattodir and enhanced by performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, wins the Soundtrack Stars Award, the awards conceived and produced by Andrea Camporesi (Free Event) and organized with the SNGCI. The jury of the 12th edition, chaired by Laura Delli Colli and formed by Alessandra Magliaro, Alessandra Vitali, Giuseppe Fantasia, Denise Negri, Paolo Sommaruga, Stefania Ulivi, Fulvia Caprara, Carola Carulli, Flavio Natalia, Marina Sanna and Susanna Rotunno then crowned Colapesce for Iddu among the soundtracks of Italian films at Venice 81. Soundtrack Stars Award of the year to Margherita Vicario for Gloria! Special Awards went to Fabio Massimo Capogrosso (his soundtracks for Se posso permettermi and Il tempo che ci vuole) and CAM Sugar, also paying tribute to Piero Piccioni for the restoration (in Venezia Classici) of Travolti da un insolito destino nell’azzurro mare d’agosto. Musical opening of this year’s event by accordionist Raffaele Damen.
Party for PAPMusic at the Villa il Nidiolo
PAPMusic – Animation for Fashion, the first full CGI animated feature film written and directed by singer-songwriter and social media star LeiKiè, was presented at the Venice Lido. Present at the event were Andrea Carpinteri, Luca Abbrescia, Rudy Zerbi the director leikie’, Fernando proce and model Ginta. The film will be released in theaters on September 26.
