14/05/2025 - Umberto Contarello’s fiction debut is a melancholy autobiographical tale exuding the humour and moods of Paolo Sorrentino’s films, who co-wrote and produced the movie

The expression “laying oneself bare” has been taken very literally by Umberto Contarello, whom we see in his birthday suit in the opening sequence of his first fiction feature film, Endless, which is shot in sharp and sophisticated black and white by director of photography Daria D’Antonio. Presented in a premiere in competition at Bari’s BIF&ST, the film will hit Italian cinemas on 15 May, courtesy of PiperFilm. But his is also a symbolic laying bare, revealing a desire to totally expose his emotions and presenting himself as unarmed and vulnerable.

Sixty-six-year-old Padovan Contarello is known for writing screenplays for directors such as fellow Padovan Carlo Mazzacurati (The Bull, Vesna Goes Fast and Holy Tongue, among others), to whom this film is dedicated, Gabriele Salvatores (Marrakech Express,  Casanova’s Return [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), Bernardo Bertolucci (Me and You [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and Gianni Amelio (The Missing Star [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), but also for signing his name alongside Paolo Sorrentino’s to screenplays for This Must Be the Place [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paolo Sorrentino
film profile], Loro [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and The Great Beauty [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paolo Sorrentino
film profile], which scooped an Oscar in 2014. Paolo Sorrentino decided to co-write and produce Endless “after my umpteenth bout of whining to him over the phone about the initial state of the film”, revealed Contarello, whose idea was to explore the implosion of a successful screenwriter’s life.

The glories of the past – represented by the photo on his bedside table of him clutching the Oscar and flaunting it to get his daughter’s attention (Margherita Rebeggiani) – and the melancholy present are at the heart of the film, a kind of Allen-style Stardust Memories in which the author places himself centre stage with an autobiographical approach permeated with tremendous humour to reflect upon “stardust” - what remains of success - and existential transitoriness.  “Humiliation”, Contarello calls it in the film. And when someone asks him if he’s scared of dying, he replies: “no, I’m scared of surviving”.

We catch him when he’s just moved to the Monti neighbourhood in Rome, grappling with workers looking for pipes in the wall and fussed over by his butler, Lucas (Eric Claire), and – always against the enchanting notes of Danilo Rea’s jazz piano – as he moves between Harry’s Bar, rowing lessons on the Tiber and a nostalgic dinner with an ex (Stefania Barca) which sees the two of them ending up in bed together. But not even this can satisfy him now. He tries to put himself back on the “market” with an agent who describes him as a “writer of films about lies, conceit and untrustworthiness”. He’s entrusted with a young co-screenwriter (Carolina Sala) who knows how to make a script work, to which he responds with the philosophy of a real narrator (“I’ve always tried to only write scenes which serve a purpose”). But humour really comes into its own when exploring the use of the notorious “turning point” in films, during a pitch with his producer friend (“stories are either brilliant or awful”). When a twenty-year-old man, whose mum was an old flame of Contarello’s, turns up at his door claiming to be his son, he wonders whether it’s the turning point in his own life. In reality, nothing really seems to faze him anymore. He watches the convent opposite his house, where a young nun is cleaning the windows, and then imagines her whizzing around Rome with him at night-time on an electric scooter, in a surreal scene which feels like Nanni Moretti, Sorrentino himself and Federico Fellini all melded into one. But it’s actually the Mother Superior (Lea Gramsdorff) that he meets, who takes him to the area in which he grew up, back to his roots. This “fabricator of lies” comes to terms with his entire past life on top of his mother’s grave in the cemetery with a sincerity so moving it’s borderline embarrassing for the viewer. Ultimately, it’s a wonderful attempt at an intimate film by someone who knows the inner workings and rhythms of the genre (with excellent editing by Federica Forcesi), in which moods from some of Sorrentino’s movies clearly shine through.

Endless was produced by Numero 10, The Apartment (of the Fremantle Group) and UMI Films, and is distributed worldwide by PiperFilm.

(Translated from Italian)