(ANSA) - ROME, AUGUST 06 - A 'celerino' "son of African immigrants, born and raised in Rome, who discovers he has to go and evacuate the occupied building where his mother and my brother still live". It is the image, the young director Hleb Papou explains to ANSA, from whom he left in 2016 for his father-in-law, Il legionario, presented in 2017 by the Criticism Week at the Venice Film Festival. A story that ilcineasta has developed and enriched in the debut film of the same name, produced by Clemart with Mact Productions and in collaboration with Rai Cinema, distributed by Fandango, which makes its debut in the Cineasti del Presente section at the Locarno Film Festival.
Papou, born in 1991, Belarusian, naturalized Italian ("I grew up in Lecco and since after high school I have lived in Rome"), graduated from AlDams and graduated from the Experimental Center, he left IlLegionario for his first work motivated by "a topical question. It is time to tell the here and now, also as regards second generation Italians, going beyond stereotypes. Italy today is no longer the same country it was 50 years ago, even if many still seem not to understand it ". The film focuses on Daniel (the talented GermanoGentile, former protagonist of the short), a young and trained agent in the capital of the First Mobile Police Department, where camaraderie prevails, under the guidance of the foreman Aquila (Marco Falaguasta). The protagonist,who is expecting a child with his partner Trisha (Giorgia De Andreis) is however torn between the duty and the need to protect his brother Patrick (Maurizio Bousso) and his mother Felicité (Felicité Mbezelé) who still live in the occupied building where he too grew up. In cameos there are also Sabina Guzzanti and the singer-songwriter Ivan Talarico. "With the other writers, we wanted to avoid doing good and propaganda. We try to make the characters come alive, both positively and negatively," explains Papou. He filmed in a real occupied building in Rome, the one in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme: "We did a lot of research and I also lived in the palace for a while, we wanted to be as honest as possible". (HANDLE).