Venice Film Festival 78: The Guide to the Movies You Cannot Miss!

From Qui Rido Io, The Lost Daughter, Last Night in Soho, La Scuola cattolica, and other films that have already divided publics and critics

The Tutelio’s team and I, like others millions of visitors all around the world, have taken part in the 78th Venice International Film Festival, a very unique experience! That is why we would like to tell you about these fantastic and unforgettable days.

We were so pleased to attend two premieres with the actors, the first one with the international cast of Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (the popular American actress Kate Hudson and the movie director Ana Lily Amirpour were in theater with us); the second was not in the competition and directed by Stefano Mordini: La Scuola Cattolica. It shows one of the most terrible Italian crimes ever committed, the Circeo carnage, with a new and inter- esting prospective. The actors Valeria Golino, Jasmine Trinca, Riccardo Scamarcio, and Benedetta Porcaroli portraying the role of Donatella Colasanti are some of the story’s main characters. Critics have already expressed their strong opinion about these two movies.

Furthermore, The Lost Daughter, based on the Elena Ferrante’s book La Figlia Oscura; Last Night in Soho with the stunning Anya Taylor-Joy (the leading actress of a recent Netflix series, The Queen’s Gambit), and Sundown with the well-know British actor Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg are other fascinating motion pictures which we have had the pleasure to preview.

We have also seen a film which addresses our beloved theme about copyright… let’s discover all these movies together!

Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon always changes the entire game and it is exciting until the last scene. It talks about diversity, love, and friendship, and has very pop style frames in one of the craziest cities of world, New Orleans, where anything can happen… for lovers of adventure, witches, and the full moon, this movie is perfect!

We went in knowing that La Scuola Cattolica would have not been easy to watch. Based on the homonymous book of Edoardo Albinati which won the Premio Strega in 2016, this film analyzes the historical and cultural context of the Roman upper classes in the ’70s, showing the falsity and corruption of some of the wealthiest families where the criminals Angelo Izzo, Andrea Ghira, and Govanni Guido grew up and committed the Circeo murder in 1975.

They were surprising actor interpretations (for someone of them it was the first experience on set), and the actress Benedetta Porcaroli yet again demonstrated her natural talent with her portrayal of Donatella Colasanti, the sole survivor of the carnage, only because that terrible day she pretended to be dead in front of her torturers.

During the press conference in Venice, Porcaroli stated, «It is a story which we all needed to hear in this historical period, where there is the idea that you need to oppress the weak in order to be a part of a group, or that the more violent you are, the more success you have and the more you fit in. Today, this story is very important, because there is a sort of violence in virtual reality where almost everything is allowed, the same impunity of that time».

At the end of the premiere the public stood up and everybody applauded for ten minutes, without stopping. La Scuola Cattolica is a very contemporary movie that everybody should see.

This is another film taken based on a book. The author under consideration is a woman, the Italian writer Elena Ferrante, one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2016 according to Times magazine. Perhaps not everyone knows that before the great success of the novel L’Amica Geniale, Ferrante published La Figlia Oscura, the story which shows the conflicting relationship of a mother with her daughters and her difficulties to find a well balanced life between her working aspirations and duties in her family context.

«So, I’m not the only one who has these dark feelings then? Maybe I’m not so wrong…,» stated the movie director Maggie Gyllenhaal to the press recently, talking about La Figlia Oscura. After having read it Gyllenhaal says she could not stop herself and that she wanted to do her cinematographic version of the novel at any cost. In fact, as she always says, she immediately wrote Elena Ferrante asking permission to make a screenplay about it and the Italian author said yes but only if Gyllenhaal would direct the film.

And this is the story about the beginning of The Lost Daughter, a story which we suggest to those who are ready for some inconvenient truths about being a mother or a parent.

From the busy canals of Venice straight to the cinema, we were immediately been thrown into London in the ’60s, in the shoes of two young women belonging to different historical periods. In Last Night in Soho, the present and past intersect in a puzzle where the protagonists’ stories build a perfect mixture without any out of tune notes. But is there a limit beyond which a dream can destroy you?

This is what that film continues to ask the viewer, in a game of perspectives that becomes increasingly dangerous for the lives of the two female characters. The actress Anya Taylor-Joy, with her magnetic eyes increases the tension of this psychological thriller, in which drama is mixed with tints of horror. Last Night in Soho is the perfect movie for those who believe in the power of dreams and for those who want to get straight to the truth at any cost.

Do you remember a character you hated from the start? Well, most of our team had the same opinion about the protagonist of Sundown. On the background of Acapulco, where armed robberies and shootings are on the agenda, the Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco outlines the profile of an enigmatic and taciturn middle-aged man; a person who is hard to get to know and to understand.

The only thing we thought, like most of the audience did too going by their faces at the end of the showing, was that: the protagonist is a stray mine with behavior devoid of any logic! But in the end, the reasons behind his actions became clear and that is the important thing.

Some symbolic images behind which the main character perceives hidden meanings are very poetic. A film in which, under the burning sun of Mexico, life and death touch each other and everything gets confused, like in a carnival. Sundown is recommended for those who love the mysteries and enigmas of our existence.

Qui Rido Io is the last movie in our list, but not the least important. A few days after having said goodbye to the Lido of Venice, some of us returned to the cinema to see this last cinematographic work directed by Mario Martone. 100% Neapolitan, Martone, as in the film Il Giovane favoloso, in this case he also edited the screenplay, bringing the audience into the Belle Epoque age, when the actor and the playwright Eduardo Scarpetta was at the height of success in theater thanks to his character Felice Sciosciammocca.

Eduardo Scarpetta, the most important actor and author of the Neapolitan theater between the end of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, was the progenitor of the Scarpetta-De Filippo theatre dynasty, father of the great Eduardo De Filippo. But we don’t want to give you a history lesson…

As we have said before, we were impressed by the importance that the movie director wanted to give to the theme of copyright and the difference between inspiration and plagiarism, because Scarpetta himself, in those years, was at the center of a legal battle. In fact, Gabriele D’Annunzio, who was then one of the most important members of the Italian Society of Authors (known today as SIAE), dragged Scarpetta to court for the parody of his tragedy, La figlia di Lorio, accusing him of plagiarism. Benedetto Croce had sided in Scarpetta’s favor and tried to show that parody cannot be considered either plagiarism or counterfeiting.