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FILMS Italy

I Am Alive a noir reflection on society

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Some have called it a noir of the soul, others a thriller about the job crisis. There are various ways to read I Am Alive [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, the feature debut by brothers Dino and Filippo Gentili, from whose genre atmospheres emerge more than one contemplation on contemporary society.

In the story, unemployed construction worker Rocco (Massimo De Santis) is roped into a simple, well-paid job by his friend Gianni (Marcello Mazzarella). For one night, they have to watch over an isolated villa, from the living room, while upstairs lies the lifeless body of the daughter of the owner of the house. How did she die? Was it an accident or did someone kill her?

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According to the directors: her motionless, silent presence "guards the truth and in some way she is more alive than the characters who move around her like ghosts" – her father (Giorgio Colangeli), brother (Guido Caprino) and the young Romanian gardener with whom she had a child.

Luckily for the directors, the idea came not from their lives by from the classics. Says Dino: "Apuleio’s ‘L'asino d'oro', the story of a wake, inspired us to portray a family’s dynamics, a generational clash, in a mix of personal and archetypical impressions". Beginning with the contrast between father and son, where, adds Filippo, "emotions are the power struggle, and it is difficult to commit the parricide necessary for growing up".

From the very male film stick out the female presence of the dead girl (non-professional actress Valentina Marchionni, chosen for her “vaguely disturbing sweetness”) and Giovanna Mezzogiorno, the directors’ cousin, who thought the film shared "the atmosphere of one of my favorite comic strips, Dylan Dog".

Combative as ever, the actress – just back from serving on the Cannes Film Festival jury – stressed the need to back debut films (this is her second this year, after Basilicata Coast to Coast [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rocco Papaleo
film profile
]
), especially in a country in which "filmmakers who aren’t ‘protected’ have a hard time working, while others will always come out on 400 screens".

To which of the two categories belong the Gentili brothers is clear from the production odyssey of I Am Alive, a model film for showing how hard it is to make a movie in Italy today. The filmmakers first received a stamp of “national cultural interest” from the Ministry of Culture (MiBAC) for their screenplay, which was then revoked, along with the promised funding. They sued MiBAC and eventually received €576,000, towards an eventual budget of €720,000, the rest of which came from distribution and international sales). Thanks to the tenaciousness of the directors and veteran producer Laura Cafiero, the film is being released tomorrow by Iris Film on 12 screens.

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(Translated from Italian)

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