Selected impending US release is mulled
for "Best of Youth", Winner of "Un Certain Regard" Cannes International
Film Festival 2003, and doted on by enthralled audiences in New York, Venice,
Montreal, Cannes, and Telluride.
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THE BEST OF YOUTH
Starring Luigi Lo Cascio and Alessio Boni.
Directed by Marco Tullio Giordana
A sweeping epic that encompasses 40 years of Italian history as seen through the lives of a Roman family, Marco Tullio Giordana's The Best of Youth is well worth the nearly six hours running time.
This enthralling feature contains as much emotional involvement as a good novel: when it's over, you're left sad but satisfied.
Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) and Matteo (Alessio Boni) are Carati brothers from Rome, disillusioned with their university studies during the turbulent 1960s As Nicola travels the globe and dreams of a better world, eventually becoming a successful psychiatrist and having a child with a future terrorist, Matteo carries the burden of society's problems on his shoulder by joining the army and, eventually, the police force.
Over the course of four decades, The Best of Youth considers how people change, evolve and interact with political and social forces. While the film is set against the backdrop of major Italian historical milestones, such as the Florence floods of the '60s and the '82 World Cup finals, it is ultimately about family, about love, and about death.
The Best Of Youth is the portrait of a generation that tried, despite all its contradictions, not to accept the world as it was but to make it a little better than how they found it.
Variety describes THE BEST OF YOUTH as "an impassioned epic that sweeps up its characters in nearly 40 years of human drama and social history, intertwining the two with a master seamstress' delicacy. At nearly six hours [THE BEST OF YOUTH's] extreme length lets Giordana and screenwriters Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli build up a novelistic rhythm, pulling the audience so deeply and forcefully into their story that it becomes like an enveloping dream; when it's over, parting with the characters is truly sweet and sorrowful"
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Winner "Un Certain
Regard" Cannes International Film Festival 2003
An epic film brings with it certain pleasures not afforded by the two-hour running time that is the conventional standard. It may seem daunting, or a challenge some will not want to confront, but those who do will be rewarded by what many consider the finest Italian film of the year.
The Best of Youth simultaneously tells the story of a family while recounting the events of the last forty years of Italian history. The film contemplates how people change, grow apart, come together and interact with political and social forces all those things that shape almost four decades of living.
The family is the Caratis: father, mother, their two sons and two daughters. The year is 1966, the setting Rome. It is apparent the two teenaged sons are polar opposites Nicola, calm and sensitive; Matteo, the wild one, impulsive and tempestuous.
Over the course of the next thirty years, the two men go their separate ways: Nicola becomes a psychiatrist, while Matteo joins the military and ends up a police officer.
One marries, the other moves through a succession of deep but troubled relationships. It is when Nicola's wife, the strong-minded Giulia, finds solace in the extreme rhetoric of the Red Brigades that events turn in a startling direction.
Early in the film, one of Nicola's professors tells him that if he is ambitious, he should leave: "Italy is a dying, useless country." This thought hangs ominously over the fates of the two brothers and their sisters - one a judge, the other a housewife - through the rest of the film. Marriages, love affairs, child-rearing and death are set against specific events in Italian history - evocative moments such as the Florence floods of 1966 and the 1982 World Cup.
For comparison, one might look to Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather trilogy, or Luchino Visconti's The Leopard, two extraordinary stories about the rise and fall of families.
But The Best of Youth is, finally, in a league of its own. It is a unique, mesmerizing film about the fortunes of an ordinary family caught up in extraordinary events.
2003
Italian Film Festival, Australia
http://www.italianfilmfestival.com.au/portal/3659/en/
films/contemporary_cinema/the_best_of_youth.aspx
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MIRAMAX GETS AWARD
WINNING, SIX-HOUR "LA MEGLIA GIOVENTU"
IndieWire.com
by Eugene Hernandez
Miramax has acquired rights for the six-hour Italian drama "La Meglio Gioventu" (Best of Youth), winner of the top prize in Un Certain Regard section at the Festival de Cannes where it debuted in May.
The project, an epic portrait of a generation that was originally conceived as a television miniseries, was packaged as a feature and has been released in two parts in Italy where it has earned more than $1 million on just 35 screens.
Miramax's plans for the project, which will include a theatrical release, are still unclear.Marco Tullio Giordana's "La Meglio Gioventu" is the story of an Italian family from the late 1960s through the present day, set against the crucial events in Italian history.
It follows two brothers, played by Luigi Lo Cascio and Alessio Boni, whose lives are changed when they encounter a troubled young woman, played by Jasmine Trinca.
The film has been a favorite with critics and is expected to play at a number of high-profile film festivals in North America this fall, according to industry insiders. While the company could not confirm festival plans for the project, a Miramax spokesperson told indieWIRE that a theatrical release is assured. Yet, the the Miramax rep said that a release date has not been set, nor has the company determined whether it will release the movie in one or two parts.
Miramax is releasing
Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" in two parts."We are thrilled to
be involved with
Marco Tullio Giordana's 'La Meglio Gioventu' (Best of Youth)," said Agnes
Mentre, head of acquisitions for Miramax Films.
"This widely acclaimed drama paints a stunning portrait of an Italian generation, and audiences around the world are certain to treasure this award-winning film."The Miramax deal includes rights for distribution in North America (excluding French Canada), the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. The company acquired rights from Rai Trade in Italy.
Chiara Trento, Miramax's director of acquisitions, identified the project for the company and a pact was negotiated by Rai's president & CEO Roberto Rossi and Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein and Fabrizio Lombardo, the SVP of Miramax International.
Directed by Giordana, who is best known for the 2000 film "The Hundred Steps," the film was written by Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli. Its title comes from that of a collection of poetry by Pier Pasolini and an old song that was sung by Alpine troops.
Miramax
Gets Award Winning, Six-Hour Italian Film "La Meglio Gioventu"
http://www.indiewire.com/biz/biz_030805miramax.html
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Marco Tullio Giordana
Direction
CRIME
NOVEL (2003)
BEST
OF YOUTH, THE (2002)
HUNDRED
STEPS, THE (2000)
PASOLINI, UN DELITTO
ITALIANO (1995)
PASOLINI, AN ITALIAN
CRIME
UNICO PAESE AL MONDO,
L' (1994)
DOMENICA SPECIALMENTE,
LA (1991)
ESPECIALLY ON SUNDAY
APPUNTAMENTO A LIVERPOOL
(1988)
CADUTA DEGLI ANGELI
RIBELLI, LA (1981)
MALEDETTI VI AMERÒ
(1980)
While best known for "Hundred Steps", Giordana's labor of love was as director of "Pasolini, an Italian Crime" . Pasolini was one of the major artistic figures in postwar Italy. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a poet and then a novelist. His great love and the subject of so many of his works were the slum youths of Rome, mostly of peasant background. After writing film scripts for Federico Fellini, Mauro Bolognini and others, Pasolini made his first and possibly his best film, Accattone, in 1961.
Giordana was intrigued
by Pasolini's decades-long complex relationship with the Communist Party.
While Pasolini rejected elements of the Stalinists' policies and methods,
he never went beyond petty-bourgeois radicalism. By the time of his death,
Pasolini had reached the point of an almost pathological political demoralization.....
Pasolini was a well known homosexual who was killed by a 17 year old boy
in a quarrel over sex.
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