Brizzi’s Ex: That crazy little disease called love
Love is a dangerous disease and the reason why we are all destined to becomes "ex-es", according to Fausto Brizzi, director of Ex (to be released February 6 on 600-700 screens by 01 Distribution). Except when we get back together or fall in love with someone else. "In the end, you begin again. The film is about the cycle of love,” said the filmmaker of this comedy that interweaves the stories of six couples between Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
Brizzi is the current golden boy of Italian cinema. The writer of a string of Christmas blockbusters, he is also a box office darling as the director behind Night Before Exams [+see also:
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film profile] (€15m in 2006, with a remake in the works in France and another dozen or so countries) and, the following year, Night Before Exams: Today [+see also:
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film profile] (domestic record holder for best ever opening day at the box office).
Ex was produced by Fulvio and Federica Lucisano (I.I.F. Italian International Film) in collaboration with RAI Cinema and in co-production with France’s Paradis Film and Mes films for approximately €8m.
Brizzi is looking to strike gold yet again with this film, and in an attempt to beat his own records, has selected a super-stellar Italian cast featuring Silvio Orlando, Claudio Bisio, Nancy Brilli, Vincenzo Salemme, Flavio Insinna, Claudia Gerini, Enrico Montesano, Cristiana Capotondi, Alessandro Gassman, Gian Marco Tognazzi, Fabio De Luigi, Carla Signoris, Elena Sofia Ricci, Martina Pinto and Giorgia Wurth, alongside French actors Malik Zidi and Cecile Cassel (sister of Vincent).
As with his previous films, the script for Ex, which Brizzi wrote with Marco Martani and Massimiliano Bruno, may soon be offered as a cinema school course on "how to write a hit film” for its mix of social observation, entertaining dialogue, comic situations that always sidestep vulgarity, a sprinkling of drama, a dash of sex and an exotic location (here, New Zealand).
On February 10, RAI Trade will hold a reserved screening of the film at the Berlinale for a selected group of buyers. "We have great market expectations [for the film]," says Caterina D'Amico, managing director of RAI Cinema.
(Translated from Italian)
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