25/04/2023 - The Italian director is returning to Ventotene Island to shoot the sequel to his cult 1996 film Ferie d’agosto which won him a David di Donatello

Director Paolo Virzì on the set of Un altro Ferragosto in Ventotene (© Paolo Ciriello)

Paolo Virzì is shooting the follow-up to his cult 1996 film Ferie d’agosto, which won him the David di Donatello Award for Best Film. He returned to Ventotene Island today, Tuesday 25 April, where the first clapperboard has since slammed on Un altro Ferragosto [+see also:
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Un altro Ferragosto sees the two opposing holiday-maker families - the Molinos and the Mazzalupis - returning to Ventotene. The cast includes many of the protagonists from Ferie d’agosto, alongside some new faces: Silvio Orlando (recently seen in Virzì’s previous movie Dry [+see also:
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The previous film ended one August evening in 1996, in the Ventotene house where Cecilia (Laura Morante) tells her partner, journalist Sandro Molino (Silvio Orlando), that she’s pregnant. In the sequel, whose screenplay comes courtesy of Francesco Bruni, Carlo Virzì and Paolo Virzì, Altiero Molino is a twenty-six-year-old digital entrepreneur who’s returning to Ventotene with his model husband in order to gather his old friends together around his ailing father so as to treat him to one last holiday in this place which is so special to him. He didn’t expect to find the island all abuzz with Sabry Mazzalupi’s marriage to her partner Cesare. This young woman, who’s the awkward daughter of Roman shopkeeper Ruggero, has become an online celebrity and her wedding is a global event attracting the media as well as mysterious emissaries from the new political regime. These two tribes of vacationers, two seemingly irreconcilable sides of Italy, are destined to come together during the Ferragosto holiday for an ultimate showdown.

“"Until now I'd only ever thought about it jokingly; so many times, almost every time I finished a film”, Paolo Virzì explained. “Now we’re returning to Ventotene and offering up a sequel to this comedy revolving around two families. I’d write new scripts but then throw them away or put them to one side. So many things were holding me back, and I’d reached the conclusion that I’d only return to Ventotene as a tourist. But this time, it’s really happening, I have no idea why it’s happening now, in 2023. I think I know why, but I want to explore this better during the days and nights of filming which await us. I’ll admit to feeling emotional about returning to those characters from that old film; it’s fun but also a little bit frightening. Mourning those who aren’t with us anymore – but who will still be there, in some sense – does upset me. It’s thrilling to get our glorious gang of actors back together again and mix them up with our new actors. I’d like to thank my friends, but above all my producers who persuaded me, with touching obstinacy, to come back to this place.”

Virzì, whose early films breathed fresh life back into Italian comedy, first stepped into the international limelight in 2014 with Human Capital [+see also:
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The film will be released in Italian cinemas, courtesy of 01 Distribution.

(Translated from Italian)