12/04/2007

The tone is that of a light comedy and vaguely reminiscent of Paolo Virzì, who, like director Francesco Falaschi, is also Tuscan. Although an apparently adolescent film – given the presence of Nicolas Vaporidis, star of Night Before Finals [+see also:
trailer
film profile] 1 and 2 – at the heart of Last Minute Marocco [+see also:
trailer
film profile] lies something more than just the escapades of three Italian teenagers (Valerio, Andrea and Giacomo) in search of adventure and freedom in Morocco.

"This is above all a comical film on the father-son relationship seen through the confrontation between two schools of thought: one is the parent-friend and the other the parent-parent", explains the director. The story even touches upon the conflicting relationship between a Muslim father and his daughter, who has grown up in Italy.

Last Minute Marocco – an Italian/French co-production between Italian Dream Factory and SBS France in collaboration with RAI Cinema and a contribution from MiBAC – tells of the travels of Sergio (Valerio Mastandrea), an architect who became a father at a very young age and is separated from his overly apprehensive wife (Maria Grazia Cucinotta), who sets out on a search for Valerio (Daniele De Angelis), their adolescent son who without his permission left for Morocco with a couple of friends with very different personalities (Vaporidis and Lorenzo Balducci), along with Samir, a Moroccan boy.

"I gave Mastandrea the job of depicting a father, as well as a Westerner in Morocco, out of his element, who is melancholic, intimist and self-deprecating", said Falaschi. Why Morocco? "People who feel compelled to grow manage to get a better view of themselves under a different sky, to have a bit more courage and turn their lives around", says the director, who also wanted to dare a non-violent encounter/confrontation between cultures and religions as different as Christianity and Islam.

"We shot in Marrakech, in particular the famous square and suq, using light equipment, in Ourzazate, an ideal set for Western and non-Western cinema, and in Essaouira. Obviously, we’re no presumptuous as to think we are recounting this country. Rather, we are offering an evocative landscape of the soul, divided between tradition and modernity".

Last Minute Marocco will be released April 13 on 150 screens by 01.