29/11/2012 - The second Italian film in competition distributed by Nanni Moretti’s Sacher

A rereading of the Passion of Christ from the last scene of the crucifixion, Su Re by Giovanni Columbu is the second film to enter the competition during this year’s Turin Film Festival. It was welcomed with a long applause from the audience following its public screening.

Bringing the film into movie theatres will be Nanni Moretti’s Sacher, who was at the screening yesterday, but refused to release a comment.

Su Re was made in the Sardinian dialect with harsh island landscapes as backdrop. The crucifixion for instance, was filmed on the Oliena peaks, which in 1965 witnessed Isaac’s Biblical sacrifice as directed by John Huston. The location is timeless, just like Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Gospel according to Matthew, while the structure was inspired, according to Columbu, by Akira Kurosawa’s life work, Rashomon, with scenes repeating themselves through different angles.

"Re-reading the Gospels fifteen years ago, when I started thinking about the film, I was moved. There were some stories that came across as true and when put one next to the other, many differences arose. This is something I wanted to tell the story of,” Columbu said."I chose Sardinia because it is a land permeated by values which seem closer to the Old, rather than the New Testament."

(Translated from Italian)