08/04/2009

Two years after Flying Lessons [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Francesca Archibugi has returned with Questione di Cuore [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“A Question of the Heart”), which could well be the best film of her career, thanks above all to two exceptional actors, Kim Rossi Stuart and Antonio Albanese.

Respectively playing Angelo and Alberto, the two bring delicacy and humour to a story of a beautiful friendship, which begins in the hospital in which they have both been brought after a heart attack. The classical narration is here arricchito by a sincere approach that explores with humanity the diverse “class” reactions to the injustice of the disease. The former is a proletarian but well-off and happily married coach-builder, who reacts by strengthening his family ties. The latter is a successful but single and emotionally confused screenwriter, who is instead compelled to change his life.

"Choosing Kim and Antonio was laborious, on paper they didn’t fit the characters. But I loved them as actors and thought they still hadn’t found their true role – there was still a small comedic side to unleash," said Archibugi. Rossi Stuart admits to having flushed out above all Angelo’s irony, trying to do "what Carlo Verdone used to do at the beginning, to allow a very typical ‘Roman’ to emerge”, in his working class neighbourhood.

Loosely based on the eponymous novel by Umberto Contarello (which Archibugi scripted alone, adding "a touch of Furio Scarpelli"), Questione di Cuore was produced by RAI Cinema and Cattleya and will be released 01 April 17 on approximately 250 screens.

The cast includes Micaela Ramazzotti, Francesca Inaudi, Paolo Villaggio, and entertaining cameos by Paolo Sorrentino, Paolo Virzì, Stefania Sandrelli, Daniele Luchetti and Carlo Verdone, playing themselves.