18/08/2009

Elia has a talent. He has a “golden foot” and has never missed a penalty kick in his life. But Elia also has a problem: he has the brain of a 12-year-old in an 18-year-old body. Michele also has a problem. An accident prevented him from achieving his dream of becoming a football player. But he also a talent: recognizing the qualities in young footballers and drawing out the champions in them.

In Luigi Sardiello’s Piede di Dio [+see also:
trailer
film profile], this odd couple starts off on a journey of hope in the football world, with its overbearing lawyers and omnipotent sports managers, to a tryout with an important team.

The films stars Emilio Solfrizzi and Filippo Pucillo (the enfant prodige of Respiro: Grazie’s Island [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Golden Doro [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alexandre Mallet-Guy
interview: Charlotte Gainsbourg
interview: Emanuele Crialese
interview: Emanuele Crialese
interview: Fabrizio Mosca
film profile]), and is being self-distributed on August 28 through the director’s company, Bunker Lab (behind the recently successful Focaccia Blues [+see also:
trailer
film profile]).

Piede di Dio [+see also:
trailer
film profile] was very well received at its world premiere last January at Bari’s Festival of Italian Cinema, as well as in Russia, where it played out of competition at the Moscow and St. Petersburg festivals. Yet it came up against the usual indifference from the large Italian distribution companies.

"Distributing your own films means holding your head up high,” says Sardiello, “while going up against a system that takes up 90% of the cinema with a very easy formula: if the film doesn’t earn anything its first week it disappears and, along with it, years of work and oceans of passion, professionalism and ideas. Yet earning a lot in the first week is practically impossible if you have no money to invest in promotion.”

From next Monday, all information on the film can be found at: www.piededidio.it.

(Translated from Italian)