Cinema: A game for 20-somethings
Shooting kicked off in Lucca (Tuscany) on September 17 on Un gioco da ragazze (“Girl’s Play”), the feature debut of 23 year-old Matteo Rovere.
Maurizio Totti, who is producing with his Colorado Film, thinks it was a good decision to entrust the story of three 18 year-olds (the debut actors with the steely gazes Chiara Chiti, Desiree Noferini and Nadir Caselli) to someone (practically) their age.
The three are flanked in their journey into the age of recklessness, set between Rome and Tuscany, by Filippo Nigro, the most recognizable face of this noir that delves into the anxieties of the Italian provinces and is based on the eponymous novel by Andrea Cotti, who was in turn inspired by recent true and bloody events.
This powerful material, genre cinema that meets crime news, is difficult for even more expert hands to handle yet the producer claims he very much believes in “Rovere’s talent and sensibility”.
Totti’s esteem comes from the impressive resume of the filmmaker, who despite his young age already has extensive experience, most of all directing music videos and short films. His first short Lexotan quickly picked up an award at the Linea d’Ombra Film Festival in Salerno before travelling the international circuit, from Sitges to Ankara.
His more recent films have done even better – Homo homini lupus (starring an intense Filippo Timi), Sulla riva del lago (with Paolo Briguglia) and the documentary Gitanes, shot in the French town of Saintes-Maries de la Mer.
Now he makes the jump to feature films – eight years after Dorme, which revealed the talent of Eros Puglielli – marking a new, anomalous enfant prodige on the scene at a time in Italian cinema when debuts are being made at an increasingly later age.
(Translated from Italian)
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