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CANNES 2013 Italy / France

Italian killer Salvo set to walk along the Croisette

- The feature film debut by duo Grassadonia and Piazza will take part in the festival with an “extreme and stylised” film as Fabrizio Mosca, who coproduced with French Mact and Cité Films, described it

The film Salvo [+see also:
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interview: Fabio Grassadonia and Anton…
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, a film debut by Sicilian duo Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza will participate in the Cannes Film Festival. One of the Italian producers of the film, Fabrizio Mosca  (Acaba) did not deny the piece of news, but avoided revealing which section the film noir will be in, as the festival’s press conference is scheduled for next Thursday.

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“This film was a challenge we are proud of,” Mosca told Cineuropa. The budget topped €1.7 million and the coproduction was robust, with Cristaldi Pictures and Acaba with French MactCité Films and Arte, and rights already acquired by Films Distribution, for what Fabrizio Mosca defined “an extreme, stylised, researched and rigorous film, in the style of Le Samourai by J.P. Melville.” Daniele Ciprì’s photography is set to compliment this tone. 

The main character of the movie is the Salvo (Saleh Bakri) from the title: a contract killer for the mafia, who kills a rival mafia man in his own home. While there, he bumps into a blind girl, Rita (Sara Serraiocco), who turns out to be the rival’s sister. Incapable of killing her and fleeing, he ends up kidnapping her and taking her to an abandoned industrial warehouse, where despite his victim’s hostility, he starts taking care of her, all the while keeping his relation to the Mafia family a secret. When the Godfather discovers that Rita was not killed however, the honour rule is applied and the two are forced to go on the run. The cast also includes Luigi Lo Cascio and Mario Pupella.

“It was a complex project which we tenaciously brought forward for five years and which collected fourteen different sources of financing, with little notice from Italian entities,” Mosca lamented. “With Massimo Cristaldi, we discovered this extraordinary couple of authors who won the Solinas Award, and instead of just taking the screenplay, we developed the project all together.”

The film started its journey with €140,000 for the production from the TORINO FILM LAB in 2009, then getting money from MIBAC as well as the European MEDIA Development fund. In the end, the French came on board with 30% of the overall budget: Former Unifrance president Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre with Mact Productions, Raphaël Berdugo with Cité Film and finally, an important contribution from ARTE.

Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza are not unfamiliar with Cannes. In 2010, their short Rita was selected from the European network Nisi Masa as a guest during the Semaine de la Critique.  

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(Translated from Italian)

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