Venice Days: Violated childhood in Gaglianone's Ruggine

02/09/2011

A group of children, immigrants from the south in the suburbs of a city in northern Italy. A well-esteemed doctor, specialising in pediatrics, a citizen who's above any suspicion. An encounter in a hot summer, and a childhood trauma that won't be forgotten. The drama of paedophilia, at the heart of Ruggine [+see also:
trailer
interview: Daniele Gaglianone
film profile] by Daniele Gaglianone, is brought to the 68th Venice Film Festival. Selected for Venice Days, the film received a warm welcome from the festival's audience, who gave it a lengthy ovation. A dark tale, in which the "monster" has the face of Filippo Timi, and the victims, as adults, that of Valerio Mastandrea, Stefano Accorsi and Valeria Solarino.

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Based on the novel by Stefano Massaron,the film alternates between the common past of the three protagonist children with the present, in which each of them tries to live their life, as accomplished or not as it may be, with the scars that they bear. "When I read the book, I felt empathetic for these uprooted children, as I too have been, as an migrant in the suburbs of Turin in the 70s," said the director. "I was also struck by the character of Doctor Boldrini, for what he represents to them. I asked myself - what happens when violence knocks on your door? What traces does a dramatic experience leave in a person? The answer is that anyone who is met with that kind of violence never really gets over it."

For Filippo Timi, it was a horrible, risky part to play, that many actors would not accept: "I am not that guy, I am just an extraordinary actor," he jokes, not being new to unpleasant characters (Vallanzasca [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Vincere [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Cannes 2009 Marco Bellocc…
interview: Filippo Timi - actor
film profile], Come Dio comanda [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and admitting to the challenge of such a role and that he blindly trusted the director. The risk was that of brushing with excess, with frenzy, with its cavernous laments, its vulgarity and its inspired songs. "I thought of creating a monster as a child would have imagined it", the actor explains. "There are calmer moments and ones that are more out of line," Gaglianone admits, "when it sings it's like being at the opera. But some choices are at the limit and I always prefer to take a risk".