It is to the comedians, actors and directors Ficarra and Picone, a comedy couple for 30 years, that the 60th Pesaro International Film Festival dedicates one of the Special Events on Italian Cinema.
And a volume edited by Pedro Armocida, director of the Pesaro Festival, and Giulio Sangiorgio, director of FilmTv, is dedicated to them, to whom it owes the title “Laughing seriously. The cinema and films of Ficarra and Picone” (ed. Marsilio).
We met them to talk about their careers and their future plans.
At the moment they are shooting a new film with Roberto Andò who after The strangeness (2022) called them on the set of The blunderhistorical film written with Ugo Chiti and Massimo Gaudioso, set in the Risorgimento era.
It was Marco Müller, artistic director of the Rome International Film Festival at the time, who wanted the film by Salvo Ficarra and Valentino Picone Let’s go to that country (2014) to close the 10 days of the Festival in Rome. “That film had a social background – they say – it talked about unemployment, for us it was a wonderful response”.
Starting from here, Ficarra and Picone reeled off memories and anecdotes from their careers with their serious comedy (like the title of the volume dedicated to them). Laughing seriously, they say: “We were lucky enough to be able to do it again The Frogs by Aristophanes. It was wonderful for us, very significant to propose a text from 2500 years ago. Aristophanes’ only concern was to make people laugh, to accompany them through laughter on a journey which then led to a speech of political criticism. It was a further lesson for us. The comedian offers a vision of him. Then we also like it if the audience leaves the room questioning something or asking themselves a question.”
And about the profession of actor and comedy writer they say: “Comedy films have somewhat stressful characteristics. You never know what can happen, that is, expectations do not necessarily correspond to reality. Maybe you didn’t expect a joke or situation to make you laugh. In our movie The Hank (2009, directed by Giambattista Avellino) there is the mafia as an element, but it is not the most important. The headlines the next day screamed: Ficarra and Picone against the mafia. Well, sometimes you don’t even expect certain reactions.”
“We were not born as directors – they continue – by making films we understood the importance of directing. We directed films and then turned to other directors again. It depends on the stories. Then there is always a discriminating factor when it comes to making comedies and comedy films. A comedy, which uses actors for the jokes, and elicits 3 laughs from the audience, makes one leave the room with the statement “we’re dying of laughter”. Make a comedy film: the audience laughs for 20 lines and then leaves exclaiming “you can’t laugh that much”. In making comedies, we place ourselves in the gap between comedy and comedy film. When we started making films we wanted to respect our idea of cinema, but at the same time not disappoint the public.
This is why writing in itself cannot be enough. As we shoot we understand which written things need to be supported.”
When asked if they had any anecdotes about it, they replied: “While we were shooting the film Daylight saving time (2017) in Termini Imerese, a politician arrives. As he proceeds towards us, we hear a list of his misdeeds whispered in our ears. He appears before us and proclaims “thank you for what you are doing for this tormented Sicily! Here, we inserted the expression “tormented Sicily” into the script. We found a strange identification with the legality, with the ethics we are talking about. We remember the slogan “vote Patanè without asking yourself why. We all agree.” Slogan always current even if today Vannacci doesn’t rhyme with why.”
