After the preview at the Rome Film Festival, Dall’altro di una castello torre arrives in cinemas on 13 June, the first work by theater director Francesco Frangipane, who we met together with two of the protagonists, Edoardo Pesce and Vanessa Scalera.
Will arrive in cinemas on June 13th From the top of a cold towerhis first feature film Francesco Frangipaneactor and theater director, artistic director of the research theater since 2008 Argot Studio of Rome, who has already directed the actress on stage Vanessa Scalera in this existential drama written by Philip Gilipart of a trilogy with the previous one Before leaving (later became a film directed by Michele Placido) And The next time. As he himself told us, the story was actually born as a screenplay and therefore it is not strictly speaking the cinematic transposition of a theatrical text. This is demonstrated by the beautiful setting in the autumnal Umbrian countryside, as is the fact that the only interior scenes are those in the hospital and the Sunday lunches of the protagonist family.
But what is this paradoxical story about? The title refers to the famous game “who would you throw down from the tower?”, except that in this case there is nothing funny. Elena and Antonio, two twin brothers, live in symbiosis, adults but never really grown up, children in turn of a bourgeois couple without close relatives. They live in a kind of bubble, alone, with a passion for the horse Dario and the countryside for him and for the swimming school for children. Their lives change dramatically when they discover that both parents suffer, by a singular coincidence, from a serious syndrome that requires an explant from a compatible donor. Initially hopeful, the two fall into the deepest desperation when they learn that only Elena is a compatible donor and therefore only one operation can be done: which parents will receive the gift of life and which will be condemned? A dilemma that brings with it a series of conflicts, which explode without the parents’ knowledge, at least initially.
Vanessa Scalera reprises the role of Elena, written for her at the theater, while Edoardo Pesce – whose “furious talent” is praised by her colleague, is Antonio. The parents are played by two other great actors, Giorgio Colangeli And Anna Bonaiuto. Vanessa Scalerawho plays another impulsive character, strong in appearance, who at times even seems cruel, explains his penchant for non-reassuring women:
“It depends on having certain moral and physical characteristics, if you get a character right it’s because you’ve given them a large part of yourself. Let’s say I’m not a calm water, I have to think to stay calm, then if you get a character right they’ll offer you some almost always others with the same characteristics. I am happy to make these types of characters. Philip Gili he also wrote it with me in mind. Until now I have never been offered a minor role, I would be very happy to play a mild woman in a film. I would also like to change a little, but I find myself in these women who are not tame.” Edoardo Pesce, notoriously more shy in speaking in public, appreciated these “two unresolved characters in the film, in a beautiful sense if we want. For me it is also a film about emotional dependencies, in a non-dysfunctional family”. It is the first time that the two actors have worked together but the chemistry, they both declare – and it can be seen – was immediate. Their credibility is as total as brothers who are almost a couple and who, as he says Frangipane, they find themselves “like teenagers faced with a mountain impossible to climb”. The director adds that he was “extremely lucky in making his cinema debut with actors of this level, I believe that these two are twin brothers, they worked on intimate and underground complicities”.
Lately we have seen Edoardo Pesce grappling with roles that seem to show his most vulnerable side (like in El Paraìso, just released in cinemas). This is how the Roman actor tries to explain his adherence to these characters: “I’m trying to take advantage of these roles that have been proposed to me because I need to open up about certain things, I’m a bit affective and for this reason I wear the mask of being playful and of Gascon, which helps me keep feelings at a distance. These films give me the opportunity to bring out these things that I can’t express in life. I really appreciated the delicacy of the film’s writing.” In the theatrical version the character of Antonio was different, and he was the one to play it Massimiliano Welcome (who in the film is Marco, one of the two doctors, with Elena Radonicichwhich they try to achieve there chosen by the brothers). It was Edoardo Pesce who gave it another imprint. “The choice of Edoardo – adds Frangipane – was not a bet, but I am convinced that he contains that fragility that he expresses on the set”. According to the actor, the character is “a listening man, solitary, with a strong relationship with nature”.
If you leave the cinema after seeing From the top of a cold tower, you will surely continue to ask yourself what you would do in the shoes of the protagonists, involved in a limit situation with the power of life or death over someone very loved, you will ask yourself which elements – rational, instinctive, sentimental – would influence your choice. The open ending of the film, which cyclically returns to where it started from, may shock you. But, as the director says: “The goal was always to Not making a thesis film, of not giving an answer, the idea is that one leaves that room and asks oneself that question, what one’s choice would be. Non-choice is a choice. The little piece that may appear missing is what the spectators must bring us.” Vanessa Scalera he finds that there is little courage on the part of distributions and productions towards different films and declares his admiration for Americana A24which has challenging films in its catalogue, which talk about important themes. And when they ask her if she is convinced, as an actress, that cinema still has a social function she has no doubts: “Of course, if an actor thinks that what he does cannot be shared, then his profession no longer makes sense. “. From the top of a cold tower arrives at the cinema with Lucky Red on 13 June and we recommend you see it if you like different and non-mainstream films that bring primary emotions, feelings and moral doubts into play.
