20/02/2023 - Musical duo Colapesce & Dimartino star in a road movie exploring a beautiful and unconventional version of Sicily, caught between gags, self-deprecation, friendship and cosmic trees

In the wake of the Sanremo Festival, a musical event broadcast worldwide which Colapesce & Dimartino took part in to great success (awarded the Critics’ Prize and the Lucio Dalla Prize for their new song Splash), Vision Distribution are releasing La primavera della mia vita [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - a film written by and starring the Sicilian artistic duo - as a special event in Italian cinemas from 20 to 22 February.

The idea behind the film is to subscribe to a light, or “incredibly light” (to paraphrase their hit ‘Leggerissima’ from two summers ago) yet brilliant brand of cinema, which is undoubtedly based on Tim Burton’s Big Fish. The result is an elegiac road movie set in a radiant version of Sicily following in the tracks of the Island’s legends, even the most unlikely ones, such as the claim that William Shakespeare was born in Messina but fled to Stratford-upon-Avon to escape the Holy Inquisition.

Written by the duo alongside Michele Astori and the film’s director, newcomer Zavvo Nicolosi (a video-maker who co-directed the music video for Splash), La primavera della mia vita is a continuation through other means of Colapesce & Dimartino’s musical poetics, expressing a modern-day Sicilianness, tinged with the coolness of anyone who has graced the regional indie scene year in, year out. And there’s also self-mockery, disenchantment which sometimes morphs into disillusion, and irresistible retro attraction for a past full of myths and extraordinary characters.

A sardonic autobiography hides within this tale, in which Lorenzo (Colapesce) - at the height of his success, whilst in the middle of a tour and with a new album in the pipeline - has been left by his partner Antonio (Dimartino) owing to a sudden existential crisis on the part of the latter. But an electrified Antonio has now returned to offer him something huge and mysterious, which goes way beyond music. Lorenzo, who labels anti-anxiety pills according to the occasion (“an evening with friends who are fans of Springsteen”), immediately takes one labelled “Antonio’s surprises”, because “enthusiasm hides the seeds of failure”.

Antonio’s idea is to write a book about Sicilian legends on behalf of a self-styled Ancient Order of the Seminites, a community-come-sect preaching that we should return to Nature that which we have taken from her, and which Antonio has become a member of. The two of them set out in a bright orange 1970s Ford Taunus SW, driving through a beautiful and unconventional version of Sicily in search of irrefutable proof of the existence of cannibalistic giants the Lestrigoni, the Garibaldi statue which cries blood, the biggest teapot in the world, the island where they bake hallucinogenic ergot bread, and Shakespeare’s great-grandchild, with peculiar encounters dotted along the way, such as the albino choir, the Jim Morrison worshippers club, the organisation of “mafia experiences” for German tourists, and the sisters from the Order of the Divers. Madame, Roberto Vecchioni, Brunori Sas, Erland Øye and La Comitiva all make special guest appearances in the film.

Starting out with a music video aesthetic, and comprising brief sequences shot with a still camera which always end with a joke from one of the two protagonists, the film comes across as a sugar-coated and colourful variation – think sweet cassata with candied fruit – of Sicilian directors Ciprì and Maresco’s grotesque and cynical cinema. Behind simple gags, the duo channel a bit of Mediterranean languor and existential uncertainty, as well as exploring creative crises and friendship. Not to mention the urgent need to connect with the Cosmic Tree.

La primavera della mia vita is produced by Wildside, of the Fremantle Group, alongside Vision Distribution, in co-production with Sugar Play collaborating with Sky.

(Translated from Italian)