20/05/2002 - Respiro by Emanuele Crialese is a Franco-Italian co-production starring Valeria Golino

Italy´s Domenico Procacci and France´s Anne-Dominique Toussaint are joined by a sort of cinematographic umbilical cord. After The Skating Rink, they have come together to produce Emanuele Crialese's second feature film, Respiro that was selected for Critics´ Week in Cannes. «Three years ago I saw Emanuele Crialese´s directorial debut, Once we were strangers in a Paris cinema. And fell in love,» says Toussaint. «I wanted to make a film in New York so I called Crialese who presented me with this project for a film in Sicily... Instead of hating it, I adored it!"
Respiro is set on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa and is about a woman, played by Valeria Golino, whom her fellow islanders think is completely mad. She is a free spirit and does not conform to the island's norms for behaviour, but her husband and child adore her.
Toussaint, through Les Films des Tournelles, contributed 20% of the budget, with the other partners being Roissy Film and Eurimages. Respiro will be released in Italy on May 22 and by the end of 2002 in France. «French audiences are anxiously awaiting the return of Italian cinema. We adored neorealism but also recent films like Il Postino special films.» Toussaint believes that Golino is most French people's ideal Italian woman.

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(Translated from Italian)