18/04/2008

A Kammerspiel shot in Denmark is one way to describe Davide Sibaldi’s The Summer In Winter [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the only Italian title in competition (in national avant-premiere) at the Lecce European Film Festival.

Set in a Copenhagen motel, the film centres on Claudio and Lulù (a young man and a prostitute). Enclosed in a hotel room, these two strangers intertwine their lonely lives, in a dialectical encounter which lays bare – in the director’s words – “the fear of experiencing one’s emotions deeply, and the courage to grow”.

Milan-born, 21-year-old Sibaldi (self-taught director of over 40 shorts) cites some lofty influences: “I drew inspiration from the psychoanalytical reading of The Little Prince”, he explained when talking about his characters, who “are two sides of the same personality”. As for the film’s style, “I owe a lot to the Dogme movement, especially The Celebration: then I discovered Richard Linklater’s Tape, and I recognised some camera shots I included in my storyboards”.

“To develop the story as I wanted, I needed a couple of theatre actors”, said the director, explaining his choice of the two actors Pia Lanciotti and Fausto Cabra, (almost) newcomers to the big screen.

Shot in digital, over five days (40 hours of filmed material, edited over seven months), The Summer In Winter doesn’t yet have an Italian distributor, but it has already triumphed at the Lake County Festival in Chicago, attracting interest from some US companies.

The film was produced for €50,000 by Enzo Coluccio for his company Ardaco Productions, which will also collaborate with Sibaldi on his next project. “Another claustrophobic film”, said the producer and director, “a thriller about three women trapped in an Argentine well, which will also be shot in Romania”.

(Translated from Italian)