20/12/2005

Shooting is wrapping up in Rome for L'amico di famiglia, the third film written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino. The film is being co-produced by Fandango, Indigo Film and Babe Productions, in collaboration with Medusa Film and Sky and stars Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Giacomo Rizzo, Gigi Angelillo and Laura Chiatti. L'amico di famigliawill be out in cinemas next October, with a probable debut at the Venice Film Festival.

"It’s about a loanshark named Geremia,” says the Neapolitan director, “an obscene and nasty man, who molests women, loans out money in the Agro Pontino region and, what’s more, has an incestuous relationship with his mother, who’s over 80. His close colleague and family friend is Gino (Fabrizio Bentivoglio), a man in love with country culture, a cowboy who roams the expanses of the Agro Pontino as if they were the American prairies." The story passes from comic moments to deeply dramatic moments. "The loanshark is a metaphor for power, a person who gives oxygen to a drowning man, albeit at a very high price. And Giacomo Rizzo gives this nasty character moments of tenderness and emotion."

(Translated from Italian)