04/10/2024 - The director’s fifteenth film stars 18 Italian actresses, including Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca who play two sisters running a film costume business in the 1970s

Courtesy of his Instagram account, Ferzan Ozpetek has revealed the first images from his fifteenth film which is currently in post-production, Diamanti [+see also:
film review
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film profile], which boasts a cast of no fewer than 16 Italian actresses alongside protagonists Luisa Ranieri (nominated at the David di Donatello Awards for The Hand of God [+see also:
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interview: Paolo Sorrentino
film profile] and starring in this year’s Parthenope [+see also:
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film profile]) and Jasmine Trinca (named Best Actress in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section by way of Lucky [+see also:
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interview: Sergio Castellitto
film profile], entrusted with the same title at the David di Donatello Awards for the same movie as well as for The Goddess of Fortune [+see also:
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film profile], and appearing in this year’s Cannes Film Festival thanks to Valeria Golino’s series The Art of Joy [+see also:
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series profile]). The former is now on her fourth collaboration with the Turkish-born Italian director, after the recent work Nuovo Olimpo [+see also:
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film profile] and Fasten Your Seatbelts [+see also:
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interview: Ferzan Ozpetek
film profile], while Trinca was a lead actress in The Fortune Goddess and Nuovo Olimpo.

Joining them in the cast are Stefano Accorsi (awarded a David di Donatello for Radiofreccia and Italian Race [+see also:
film review
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interview: Matilda De Angelis
interview: Matteo Rovere
film profile], recently seen in the series My Love), Elena Sofia Ricci (awarded a David di Donatello for Io e mia sorella, Ne parliamo lunedì and Loro [+see also:
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film profile]), Kasia Smutniak (Fasten Your Seatbelts, Loro), Vinicio Marchioni (20 Cigarettes [+see also:
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film profile], There Is Still Tomorrow [+see also:
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interview: Paola Cortellesi
film profile]), Lunetta Savino (Matrimoni, Rosa [+see also:
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film profile]), Paola Minaccioni (Fasten Your Seatbelts), Aurora Giovinazzo (Freaks Out [+see also:
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interview: Gabriele Mainetti
film profile]), Nicole Grimaudo (Loose Cannons [+see also:
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making of
film profile]), Vanessa Scalera (L’arminuta [+see also:
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interview: Giuseppe Bonito
film profile]), Carla Signoris (Ex [+see also:
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film profile]), Giselda Volodi (Agata and the Storm), Milena Vukotic (La sedia della felicità [+see also:
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Produced by Marco Belardi on behalf of Greenboo Production, together with Faros Film and Vision Distribution in collaboration with Sky, the film was shot exclusively in Rome, based on a screenplay penned by Carlotta Corradi, Elisa Casseri and the director himself. Set in the present-day and in the 1970s, Diamanti explores the life events and romantic ups and downs of a group of women who gravitate around a significant film costume business directed by two sisters, who are as different as they are close-knit. The director’s note shared yesterday reads as follows: “A director calls upon his favourite actresses with whom he’s worked and whom he’s loved. He wants to make a film about women but he doesn’t give much away: he observes them and gleans inspiration, until his imagination catapults them into another era, a past time when the noise of sewing machines fills a workplace managed and populated by women, where men only play marginal roles and the story of cinema can be told from another point of view: that of its costumes. Amidst loneliness, passions, anxieties, heartrending shortcomings and unshakeable bonds, reality and fiction interweave, as do the lives of these actresses with those of their characters, competition with sisterhood and the visible with the invisible”.

Before his most recent films mentioned above, Ozpetek was known for Hamam: The Turkish Bath, Harem Suarè (selected for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section), His Secret Life (in competition in Berlin), Facing Windows [+see also:
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interview: Ferzan Ozpetek
film profile] (awarded the Crystal Globe in Karlovy Vary) and A Perfect Day [+see also:
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film profile] (in competition in Venice).

The film’s director of photography is Gian Filippo Corticelli who’s been collaborating with the director for over twenty years, while set design comes courtesy of Deniz Kobanbay, costumes are by Stefano Ciammitti, editing by Pietro Morana (who also signed his name to Nuovo Olimpo and The Fortune Goddess), and the movie’s music is composed by Giuliano Taviani and Carmelo Travia. Vision Distribution are handling international sales for Diamanti, which is hitting Italian cinemas on 19 December courtesy of the same company.

(Translated from Italian)