21/01/2008

A century ago it was the first capital of Italian cinema yet Turin does not live merely off of its past. Currently, the city’s film industry continues to grow. Moreover, the entire Piedmont region is thriving, due above all to the Turin Piedmont Film Commission.

Presided over by Steve della Casa, the Film Commission last year supported 17 features (not counting television productions, documentaries and commercials). Some were distributed in late 2007, such as 2061 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Carlo Vanzina and Mimmo Calopresti’s The Feast [+see also:
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film profile], shot in Rome and Calabria but with post-production done in Piedmont.

Those to come out in early 2008 include Signorinaeffe [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Wilma Labate, out last Friday. It will be followed this week by Carlo Lizzani’s Hotel Meina.

The most highly anticipated releases in the next few months include I demoni di San Pietroburgo [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Giuliano Montaldo, Marco Tullio Giordana’s Sangue pazzo [+see also:
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film profile] and Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo, all of which were shot in Piedmont.

In economic terms, last year was a triumphant one. In 2007 productions invested over €31m in the territory, a 14% increase over the preceding year.

In the upcoming days, shooting will continue on Francesco Munzi’s second feature, La notte, produced by Donatella Botti’s Bianca Film. In the film, the director of Saimir [+see also:
trailer
film profile] explores Turin’s dual personality. On the one hand, it is a bourgeois city, on the other, the promised land of a new proletariat, made up mostly of immigrants.

Bianca Film is also behind another project that will go into production in February: Maria Sole Tognazzi’s L’uomo che ama, an ensemble piece featuring a stellar international cast, including Monica Bellucci and Marisa Paredes.

After Trieste (where he shot, with backing from the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission, Amori, bugie e calcetto, out soon), Luca Lucini chose Turin for Le avventure semiserie di un ragazzo padre. Like the previous film, it is produced by Cattleya.

Darker atmospheres feature in Stefano Bessoni’s Imago mortis, “a gothic fable filled with terrible spectres” (the Italian/Spanish/Irish co-production starts the young Alberto Amarilla of The Sea Inside [+see also:
trailer
film profile]); as well as in Il demone dentro by Federico Lagna, a satanic horror film produced by Gianluca Curti’s Minerva Productions in association with Libero De Rienzo (who stars alongside a number of debut actors).

A frightful Turin also figures in the latest work by Dario Argento, who shot some of his classics in the city and who returns in February to shoot, Giallo, featuring an international cast (Ray Liotta, Vincent Gallo and Asia Argento). Argento’s film is not to be confused with the almost eponymous Giallo?, which Antonio Capuano will begin filming in January and is produced by Home Films.

However, the most anticipated titles, especially by film lovers (and festivals), are two historical frescoes produced respectively by Offside and Palomar: Vincere by Marco Bellocchio, on Mussolini’s secret son, and Noi credevamo, the Risorgimento era epic written by Giancarlo De Cataldo and shot by Mario Martone (director of Turin’s Repertory Theatre).

(Translated from Italian)