01/04/2008

In one of the funniest and most significant scenes in Don’t Think About It [+see also:
trailer
film profile], main character Stefano (Valerio Mastandrea) uses his lighter to make his way through a cemetery at night, in search of his biological father’s gravestone. His mother has just told him that she cheated on his father 35 years ago and that he is the product of that transgression.

And that’s not all: his sister (Anita Caprioli) loves only dolphins and might be a lesbian; his brother (Giuseppe Battiston) is running into the ground the family business, a plant that bottles cherry liqueur; while their oblivious father plays golf all day.

"Wasn’t it better when none of us knew anything about the others?", mumbles Stefano. Running away from a broken heart and Rome, where he ekes out a living as a post-punk guitarist, Stefano comes home, to an ever-worsening northeastern Italy, into the arms of an imperfect but united family.

Eight years after Beside Myself, Gianni Zanasi is back with an arthouse comedy – which premiered in Venice Days last year and won the Italian Film Critics Prize, among others – that has already been sold in 17 countries by France’s Pyramide. "We transformed into a strength the anomaly of a talented, young director who had not worked in some years and a film without markedly commercial requisites", says with pride Beppe Caschetto (ITC Movie), who produced the film with Pupkin and the collaboration of broadcaster La7.

The film is being released in Italy on April 4 on 200 screens, and at the end of the month in France under the title Ciao Stefano.

"In recent years", adds Zanasi, "there prevailed a difficult climate for young people who had somewhat unusual projects. Today, signals are different, also because distribution methods offer less economic risks for second films. I’m referring to Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodysson, who has made low-budget films he then exported to the entire world".

(Translated from Italian)