20/10/2006

"There is an interior landscape, a geography of the soul. We look for its elements our entire lives," writes Josephine Hart, the Irish author of the heartrending novels Damage and The Reconstruction, the latter which Roberto Andò (Strange Crime, 2004, presented in Cannes and sold to over 22 countries), used as the basis for his new film, Viaggio segreto [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (lit. “Secret Journey”).

"When you come across a story and it begins to touch your heartstrings, as The Reconstruction did with me, it means it is tied to life and demands to be told", said the Sicilian director of his third feature. The theme of Viaggio segreto is human existence in relation to the most extreme passions: love and pain. "One of my main interests is the relationship with memory, that is, how human beings relate to memories when they are tied to painful events," added Andò.

Viaggio segreto is essentially the story of a journey, that is both real and metaphoric, whose objective is to “reconstruct” the lives of two people through the handling of memories of a past that is too painful to bear. The main characters are a brother and sister: Leo (Alessio Boni), a 40 year-old psychologist, and Ale (Valeria Solarino), a young model and aspiring actress.

As children, they suffered a traumatic event in their family home in Sicily, which forced them to move to Rome. Here, Leo, who protects his sister from the painful events she has erased from her memory, discovers the family house is for sale and that it has a potential buyer: her sister’s companion Harold (director Emir Kusturica). He decides to travel to Sicily, on a trip that will also be a journey into the depths of his soul.

However, the film is also a mystery about a crime, and in this sense works on reconstruction – a word as crucial as it is peculiar – of uncovering what really happened in the characters’ pasts. The film is a Italian-French co-production by Medusa Film and Manigolda Film, in collaboration with Sky.

(Translated from Italian)