Tutti gli articoli di Valentina Speranza

“PRÉLUDE” BY SABRINA SARABI

Article by: Silvia Gentile
Translated by: Lucrezia Villa

Director Sabrina Sarabi’s first feature film, in competition at Torino Film Festival, on the surface seems to belong to the traditional coming-of-age films.

David (Louis Hofmann) is a young pianist, who studies at a prestigious music academy tutored by cold and strict Professor Matussek (Ursina Lardi). In order to achieve his dream and be accepted into The Juilliard School, he spends up to eight hours a day practicing without rest. When he meets Walter (Johannes Nussbaum) and Marie (Liv Lisa Fries), a couple with whom he soon after forms an uncommon friendship, his already fragile mental state gets affected. After stealing his friend’s girlfriend, David gets romantically involved with Marie, however, he devotes himself to piano only, and his lack of commitment to their love story causes it to come to an end abruptly. 

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“EL HOYO – THE PLATFORM” BY GALDER GAZTELU-URRUTIA

Article by: Roberto Guida
Translated by: Giorgia Bellini

Remember, my dear Sancho, who has more needs to do more.

I totally agree. I just wish Quijote could explain that to hoyo’s “guests”.

But Goreng (Ivan Massagué) knows it well, in fact he chose to take Cervantes’ book with him. He shares the Tower’s 48th floor room with the old Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), but every month they wake up on a different floor. Apparently, only who is on the highest floor have access to food, while people on the lower floors have to feed on the leftovers, and the poor devils at the bottom are forced to cannibalism in order to survive – or, even worse, to commit suicide due to the lack of food. Still, the number of these levels remains unknown.

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“TITO” BY GRACE GLOWICKI

Article by: Silvia Gentile
Translated by: Chiara Franceskin

Not only as the protagonist in the film Raf (Harry Cepka), Grace Glowicki also participates in Torino Film Festival as a director with her first feature film, Tito.

Tito (interpreted by Grace Glowicki herself) is a misfit, an outcast who, after having suffered violence, lives isolated in his house with sparing furniture. He is haunted by scary sounds and imaginary monsters that seem to be in ambush wherever he is. Tito is also tormented by a physical illness that prevents him even from eating. Suddenly a “friendly neighbour” (Ben Petrie) – as he is presented in the opening credits – appears in his house. He talks incessantly, and Tito feeds him, makes him take drugs, and, for a while, he seems to get him out of his solitude and fear, but actually he will reveal himself as another of his executioners.

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“SPACE DOGS” BY ELSA KREMSER AND LEVIN PETER

Article by: Laura k. Barbella
Translated by: Gabriele Cepollina

So bold and natural is the mankind’s urge to explore new worlds. It is what features the process of evolution, that depends on the right combination of curiosity, need and audacity: from the first monkey that descended of its tree, up to the first man who walked on the surface of the moon. Nonetheless, if you really want to adventure the unexplored, it is not necessary to be pushed, changing your own point of view is just enough.

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“NOW IS EVERYTHING” BY RICCARDO SPINOTTI AND VALENTINA DE AMICIS

Article by: Sirio Alessio Giuliani
Translated by: Anna Benedetto

Debut film of two Italian directors, Spinotti and De Amicis, Now is Everything was made thanks to an Italian-American indie production, starring the talented Anthony Hopkins, Madeline Brewer and Camille Rowe. It is a rather complex film with various experimental elements in it, paving the way for two possible interpretations. 

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“L’APPRENDISTATO” BY DAVIDE MALDI

Article by: Valentina Velardi
Translated by: Alice De Vicariis

After Frastuono, presented at the TFF in 2014, Davide Maldi makes the second chapter of a trilogy on adolescence. The film, presented in the section TFFDOC/italiana, starts from a clear premise: the search for a context where teens are encouraged to learn a profession at an early age, and so grow up faster. For this reason, Maldi decided to follow the first school year of an hospitality institute class composed of five students.

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“SIMPLE WOMEN” BY CHIARA MALTA

Article by: Giulia Leo
Translated by: Selene Novaro Mascarello

It’s 1989 and television is broadcasting footage of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena’s deaths. Federica (Jasmine Trinca) is spending Christmas with her family when she has her first epileptic seizure. A few years later she is a teenager, obsessed with the cult movie Simple Men (Hal Hartley, 1992) and with Elina Löwensohn’s character, who suffers from the same neurological disorder. Their fates are destined to intertwine when Federica, now an adult and a film director, meets the Rumanian actress in Rome. She offers her a part as herself in a biopic set in Bucharest; despite her initial reluctance, the actress accepts, hoping to regain some of her long-lost fame.
Simple Women is Chiara Malta’s debut film; the director’s intent is made clear from the very beginning, with an intermixture of different registerswithin a meta-cinematic frame in which the lines between reality and fiction are blurred.

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“I GIORNI E LE OPERE” BY FRANCESCO DONGIOVANNI

Article by: Ada Turco
Translated by: Viola Locci

Francesco Dongiovanni’s documentary, I giorni e le opere, competes at TFF in the Italian.Doc section. It is about the meeting between two souls. Peppino is a quiet countryman who moves on the blurry line between the past and the present. Dongiovanni follows him paying attention not to trample on that fine line which divides the two dimensions, and that seems to survive only in Peppino. One of the most important features of the film is the breeder’s skillful work, but the director’s touch is also remarkable: the silent long shots – even when they are empty – are characterized by the swinging of the hand-held camera. Thanks to this technique, horizons imperceptibly bend and dissolve, and the loneliness of the different locations appear even more meaningful.

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“SWARM SEASON” BY SARAH CHRISTMAN

Article by: Roberto Guida
Translated by: Chiara Franceskin

Hawaii is a beautiful and dramatic microcosm: the economy of the island is based on millionaire incomes that come from tourism. But inland, far from beaches the villages for vacationers, indigenous people face their dependencies on the “resources”, while the islanders fight battles for the survival of all of us.

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SOLDATI’S DAY

Article by: Arianna Vietina
Translated by: Giorgia Bellini

Mario Soldati was an all-round author, a cultured man who has dedicated himself to literature, cinema, television and journalism. He has been the writer and the director of his own life. Born in Turin in 1906, he died in 1999 and, on the twentieth anniversary of his death, we’re talking about him again. Who was Mario Soldati? Why do we keep talking about him? Do we keep on making the same mistake of underestimating him?

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“L’UOMO RACCOGLITORE” BY DEMETRIO GIACOMELLI

Article by: Gianluca Tana
Translated by: Anna Benedetto

After winning best Italian documentary for Diorama at the 35th edition of the Torino Film Festival, Demetrio Giacomelli is back in competition at Turin with his new film L’uomo raccoglitore (The gatherer man). 

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“WET SEASON” BY ANTHONY CHEN

Article by: Samuele Zucchet
Translated by: Chiara Franceskin

Wet Season is the second work by Anthony Chen, a Malaysian director who already won the Camera d’Or in Cannes in 2012 with Ilo Ilo. It is the monsoon season in Malaysia, and rains don’t want to stop. There are bodies of water that reflect and amplify the state of mind of the characters who populate this film.

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“PARADISE – UNA NUOVA VITA” BY DAVIDE DEL DEGAN

Article by: Cristina Danini
Translated by: Cecilia Malanima

Calogero (Vincenzo Nemolato) is a young Sicilian man who wanted to do the right thing for himself, for her companion and for his still unborn daughter Marcella. This is the reason why Calogero denounced the killer that had once shot two men right in front of his granita cart. And this is the reason why he ended up in Trentino, in a tiny forgotten village, living in a guesthouse called Paradise.

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“DIE KINDER DER TOTEN” BY KELLY COPPER AND PAVOL LIŠKA

Article by: Cristina Danini
Translated by: Ilaria Roma

The Alpenrose is the typical Styrian guesthouse where you can taste local food and beer in a traditional atmosphere. The waitress, who is also the owner of the place, is not satisfied with her life even though her husband, a Styrian cook, tries to give her some comfort while tenderizing some meat by using his bare hands. He is also watched by a stuffed groundhog which is obviuosly Styrian as well. 

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“HRA” BY ALEJANDRO FERNÁNDEZ ALMENDRAS

Article by: Valentina Velardi
Translated by: Chiara Franceskin

«I have been living in Czech Republic for some time. I have been discovering its culture little by little and, above all, its great cinematographic history. For this reason, I decided to make a movie which was a tribute to the sixties Czech cinema.» that is how the Chilean director introduced the first screening of his film at Torino Film Festival.

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“GREENER GRASS” BY JOCELYN DEBOER AND DAWN LUEBBE

Article by: Noemi Castelvetro
Translated by: Francesca Massa

Jill (Jocelyn DeBoer) and Lisa (Dawn Luebbe), hectic mothers, trophy wives and frenemies, live in a small, thoroughly organized residential district, with disgusting pastel colors, where people go around with golf carts. Jill is a people pleaser, and she decides to give her newborn to Lisa, whom accepts: the people around the two women smoothly approve this exchange, and surreal events full of symbolic elements increase. 

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“LA GOMERA” BY CORNELIU PORUMBOIU

Article by: Fabrizio Spagna
Translated by: Gabriele Cepollina

Film critics in Cannes have branded it as a childish play, a bundle of tangles or a formal experiment which has failed the expectations. On the other hand, the crowd of the enthusiasts present at the display is quiet and has praised it as much as its detractors have booed it. The new movie made by the Romanian director is actually a bundle of tangles: a postmodern but not a pimped one.

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“IL GRANDE PASSO” BY ANTONIO PADOVAN

Article by: Silvia Gentile
Translated by: Lucrezia Villa

After his debut as a director with Finchè c’è prosecco c’è Speranza (2017), Antonio Padovan presents his second film, which is an atypical combination along the lines of Spielberg’s science-fiction films and Italian comedies, not to mention the great influence of director Carlo Mazzacurati, with whom Padovan shares roots. 

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“MADE IN BANGLADESH” BY RUBAIYAT HOSSAIN

Article by: Ottavia Isaia
Translated by: Francesca Massa

Made in Bangladesh, just like the labels we find on our clothes: from the first frames, the film focuses on the harsh working conditions under which the women who produce them are subjected, in overcrowded rooms and without security measures. The leading character Shimu (Rikita Nandini Shimu), after the death of a colleague in a factory fire, fights against these conditions and begins to collaborate with a journalist to start a union that protects women workers (all women, because they are considered more easily manageable and they are paid less than men).

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“LE CHOC DU FUTUR” BY MARC COLLIN

Article by: Chiara Perillo
Translated by: Cecilia Malanima

Whatever foreruns the future, so innovations and changes, is often perceived as a choc from those who live in the present, since they’re still busy figuring out the past. From this point of view, Le choc du futur is emblematic, considering that the main issue concerns the creative process of a new kind of music: the music of the future.

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