Scamarcio peasant rebel in The Last Paradise

Love, the South and the peasant world in a 1950s Italy where everything was different, but not too much. THE ULTIMATE PARADISE, Netflix original film produced by Lebowski and Silver Productions available from February 5th on the streaming platform, takes us back in time to an archaic and poor Puglia where what really matters is only the land, who owns and exploits it. farmers. Directed by Rocco Ricciardulli and written by the director himself together with Riccardo Scamarcio who is also the producer of L'ULTIMO PARADISO, the film is inspired by a true story that takes place in 1958. Here we find Ciccio (Scamarcio), a forty-year-old farmer married to Lucia (Valentina Cervi) and with a seven-year-old son. Certainly a man of character. In addition to being a female spoiler, Ciccio also dreams of changing the world, so much so that he puts himself at the head of his fellow villagers against those who have always exploited the weakest. Not only. The man is secretly in love with Bianca (Gaia Bermani Amaral), the daughter of Cumpà Schettino (Antonio Gerardi), a landowner, in the smell of the mafia, who has been exploiting peasants for years. Ciccio would like to run away with the beautiful Bianca but, as soon as Schettino learns of their story, everything falls apart and nothing will be the same again. "I found in this story the class struggle and also the dynamics of those who run away and are nostalgic for their roots - says Riccardo Scamarcio via Zoom of this film shot between Gravina, Bari and Trieste -. Italy, it should not be forgotten, is a country that has produced an important immigration, there are at least sixty million Italians living abroad - continues the actor as if to motivate the international appeal of a product destined for Netflix -. And then - he adds - there are characters in the film three-dimensional, not the usual good and bad and also many atmospheres that I experienced as a child. However - underlines Scamarcio - for me it is not a return to the earth because in reality I have never really left Puglia ". The director and co-screenwriter Rocco Ricciardulli then explains about the relevance of the film: "What you see in the 1950s hasn't changed that much. There is still that same exploitation today, but now the victims are non-EU citizens who earn two euros. then". Instead, Scamarcio says about his recent paternity (he had a girl last summer, Emily, from Angharad Wood, a 47-year-old British manager): "From the actor's point of view, it is a theme that I have dealt with in films such as 'while from a personal point of view I discovered that having a child is an ancestral love, a love that does not foresee you, a love that goes beyond you ". As for the current pace of her artistic commitment, she explains: "I'm accelerating rather than slowing down, I just want to make films. For me, cinema is always the best thing there is and I hope my daughter understands that cinema is too. better than life ". Nostalgia for the dark room? "Cinema is not linked to the place where it is seen, but it is a way of telling that I think will never die. Cinema speaks to our unconscious, as Fellini understood well, the theaters will reopen and, in my opinion, there will be a huge return. Let's just hope - he concludes - that it will end soon ".