21/07/2006

A story on the relationships between three characters, their emotions and their search for space of their own, as well as a lucid, non-judgmental look at immigration, homosexuality, social inequality and the threats of globalisation.

This is the second film by Marco Simon Puccioni – after his 2001 digital title Quello che cerchi (lit. "What You’re Searching For") – and is called Anis tra di noi (lit. "Anis Among Us"). Anis is a young North African boy (Mounir Ouadi in a debut performance) who, after immigrating illegally to Italy, enters the dynamics of a lesbian couple: Anna (Maria De Medeiros), a rich 35 year-old, and Mara (Antonia Liskova), a 25 year-old worker in the factory Anna’s mother owns.

An entirely Italian story, the film is set almost completely in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region where the geographical context – an industrious northeast extremely focused on work – becomes a character in its own right. "Anis tra di noi tries to depict a social situation without prejudices", explains producer Mario Mazzarotto. "Besides the private and emotional dimension of the three characters, the film is essentially a look at the transformation of the provincial family".

Coming about from a Solinas Award treatment finalist of several years ago, the €1.3m film was produced by Intel Film and French company Adésif, in collaboration with Rai Cinema and with support from the FVG-Film Fund (Regional Audiovisual Fund of Friuli Venezia Giulia), the MEDIA Programme and Eurimages that, along with the presence of an actress of the calibre of Maria De Medeiros, will guarantee the film an international existence.