24/05/2005

"Quo vadis, baby?" asks Marlon Brando to Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris. The same question crushes Giorgia's life and leaves the door wide-open on the past. It pushes her in the black recesses of family secrets, in a triangle between her, her sister, a candidate actress who suicide 16 years before and her father, a rough man who saw his wife dying, retreated into himself and into alcohol.

Gabriele Salvatores returns to the screens with the character of an intense woman, a private detective who works in her father's agency. She spies clandestine couples and shares tins with her cat in a house where the ashtrays are full of fag ends. Starring Angela Baraldi, a singer, she is the heart of Quo vadis, baby?, a film-noir full of references to cinema masterpieces such as M by Fritz Lang.

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The film was produced by Maurizio Totti with a budget amounting to 3 million euros, and was shot in High Definition between Bologna and Roma. It inaugurates the new literary and cinema genre of the Italian editing and production company ColoradoNoir. Indeed, it is adapted from the Bolognese Grazia Verasani's novel which bears the same title. "I experienced subjectivity – says the filmmaker – I put a digital camera on the head of an actor so it would be him to choose the frames. I shot a few sex scenes, the first ones in my entire carrier, with a unique shooting, a very discreet sequence shot.
Starring Claudia Zanella, Luigi Maria Burruano and Gigio Alberti, the film will be released next Friday in Italy in 250 prints. It is distributed by Medusa.