A day like that The Festivals dedicated to Italian cinema between yesterday (Marcello Mastroianni and Bernardo Bertolucci) today (Paolo Sorrentino) and tomorrow (the young actors Celeste Dalla Porta and Giuseppe Maggio) not even at the Venice Film Festival. Cannes has always had a full and truthful awareness of how fundamental our cinematography has been. And in unsuspecting times he has focused on those called upon to keep the tricolor high, launching Matteo Garrone and Paolo Sorrentino among others.
Own the Oscar-winning author enters the competition late on Tuesday 21st, with “Parthenope” (in theaters in autumn, thanks to the newly formed PiperFilm). The dedication, right from the title, is to his city. Naples returns to being central, after “It was God’s hand”. Very little is still known about what the film tells. But the heart should be the flow of a woman’s life, from youth to old age. From newcomer Celeste Dalla Porta to veteran Stefania Sandrelli, who cross their respective generations playing the same character: the Partenope of the title. We will find out what the mermaid has to do with the official poster.
Stefania national team then doubles. She is also in the rich cast of “Marcello mio”, the curious dedication by the French Christophe Honoré to Marcello Mastroianni on the centenary of his birth (28 September 1924). It’s a game between cinema and family. The protagonist is Chiara Mastroianni, who takes on the role of father Marcello and duets with mother Catherine Deneuve. It is also a poetic and vital link between the cinema of two geographically and culturally close countries.
One wonders if, with the roles reversed, some Italian author would have had the same idea. To celebrate in this way a point of reference such as, for example, the Parisian François Truffaut. France also loved Bernardo Bertolucci very much (died in Rome in 2018). The director of “Last Tango in Paris” is played at a young age by Giuseppe Maggio – among the new names, a very interesting profile – in the out-of-competition film “Maria” by Jessica Palud. Biography of the actress Maria Schneider and her stormy relationship with Bertolucci, right on the set of “Last Tango”. The power is a j’accuse to our author of having kept silent from the young Schneider (who passed away in 2011) the psychological and physical extremisms that the scandalous masterpiece would have required. In the biopic, Marlon Brando – he was also born a hundred years ago – has the beautiful and damned features of Matt Dillon.
A little bit of grandeur it is necessary. Today the Olympic flame and the documentary “Olympiques! La France des jeux” by Mickael Gamrasni. Another national pride, the star Daniel Auteuil presents his film as director and protagonist: the dramatic “Le fil”.
by Federico Fumagalli
