Trieste: A cinema zone
In Trieste, cinema is not only seen, it is made. This is due in part to the welcoming regional Film Commission, present at the Trieste Film Festival in the Cinema Zones section with two international titles shot in the city last year: Swiss film Off the Ropes by Fulvio Bernasconi and Nora Hoppe’s The End of the Sea.
Both chose to capture the city’s non-tourist side. Instead of Austro-Hungarian atmospheres, historical cafes or the medieval charm of the ancient neighborhood, they depict a city in which people sweat and work (where they live and even die): the industrial areas of the city outskirts and the piers of the old port.
The film by Swiss director Bernasconi plunges audiences into the world of illegal boxing. Michele (a surprising Michele Venitucci, who at Locarno last year won the best acting award ex-aequo with Michel Piccoli for his performance) is a boxer who hoped to make it big in Germany. However, frustrated by the corruption in the industry, he returns to Trieste. There, to pay off debts (his and his sister’s), he accepts to get into the ring and fight off the ropes. The grey and often nocturnal city provides the setting for “Michele’s journey into the darkest part of himself”, as the actors describes it.
“I needed a city with a huge boxing tradition, in a country where it was still possible to make a living boxing,” says the director. Elda Guidinetti (who with her Ventura Film made a project that had been in the works for years) adds how “important it was to shoot in a border city, close to a border than Switzerland’s, and Trieste with its geographical position seemed ideal”. The choice was thus made even before they were granted support from the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission, “which backed the film generously”.
Despite the Italian minority co-producers (ITC Movie, Bianca Film and RAI Cinema, with a contribution from MiBAC) and co-star Maya Sansa, an acclaimed Italian actress, Off the Ropes has not yet been picked up for distribution in Italy.
Also making its Italian premiere is The End of the Sea by Hoppe, a native New Yorker and European by adoption (after having lived in France, England and Italy, she now divides her time between Berlin and Aix-en-Provence). Set against the backdrop of the port, the director tells the story of Todor, a Serbian smuggler who during one of his usual trips discovers a woman locked in a crate, destined for the white slavery market.
Starring Miki Manojlović,
Produced by Germany’s Flying Moon Filmproduktion, with Unlimited (France), Revolver (Italy) and ZDF/Arte, the film is being sold worldwide by Onoma.
(Translated from Italian)
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