Venice: Sorrentino leads the charge of the Italians

There is an Italian squadron protagonist in Venice 78 (1-11 September), a record participation with five films in competition and many in selection and other sections, from Orizzonti to the Giornate degli Autori, which well represent the new Italian cinema, from generation of established directors such as Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino and Mario Martone to new talents, from the D'Innocenzo brothers to Gabriele Mainetti expected at the second test and then again the emerging ones such as Leonardo Di Costanzo, Laura Bispuri, Stefano Mordini, Alessandro Gassman. Here is a partial guide to the position of the Italians at the Venice Film Festival, starting with the five for the Golden Lion that will be awarded by the jury chaired by the director of Parasite Bong Joon-ho.

IT WAS THE HAND OF GOD

- Naples, the city of childhood, the beloved parents lost too soon, the place of delirium for Diego Maradona. Exactly 20 years after the first film The extra man with Toni Servillo, Sorrentino brings to Venice an autobiographical tale of destiny and family, sport and cinema, love and loss in the story of Fabietto, a boy in the Naples of the 80s.

A famigliona, loneliness, pains, the search for a vocation, the sense of youthful inadequacy, in what is admittedly a personal, intimate, sincere and perhaps liberating film. Produced by Lorenzo Mieli and Paolo Sorrentino, a The Apartment production, it will be released in selected cinemas on November 24th and on Netflix on December 15th. "As kids, the future seems dark to us. Staggering between joys and sorrows, we feel inadequate. But the future is behind it. We have to wait and search. Then it arrives. And it can be beautiful. This is what the hand talks about. of God. Without tricks, this is my story and probably yours too ", he wrote on Instagram. In the cast, alongside the protagonist / alter ego Filippo Scotti, a fantastic Toni Servillo, Teresa Saponangelo, Luisa Ranieri,Renato Carpentieri and many other Neapolitan actors.

- Mario Martone tells the life of the great comic actor and playwright from Naples in the early 1900s Eduardo Scarpetta played by Toni Servillo (who has a third film besides Sorrentino, AriaFerma by Leonardo Di Costanzo). "It is the imaginary novel of Scarpetta and his tribe", said Martone who investigated the relationship between him and the De Filippo sons. The film will be released immediately: on 9 September distributed by 01, produced by Indigo Film with Rai Cinema.

LATIN AMERICA

- The D'Innocenzo twins win the competition in the third film, after La terra dell'abbanzo and Favolacce. For the new film ("a love story, and like all love stories a thriller"), they again chose Elio Germano as the protagonist. Latina: swamps, reclamation, disused nuclear power plants, humidity. Massimo Sisti is the owner of a dental practice, he has conquered everything he could wish for: a villa immersed in the quiet and a family he loves, his wife Alessandra and daughters Laura and Ilenia. But one day like any other he goes down to the cellar and the absurd takes possession of his life. Produced by Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment, the film is distributed by Vision Distribution in November.

- It is the new ambitious film by Gabriele Mainetti who with the first work They called him Jeeg Robot gave a shock to Italian cinema. Written again with Nicola Guaglianone (from one of his original subjects), he finds Claudio Santamaria in the cast. The adventure and coming-of-age film tells a story "in occupied Rome in 1943 with four unique and unrepeatable freaks, protagonists of a bigger story than them". A work where superpowers are not just entertainment, a bit as if the Avengers had a soul. Produced by Goon Films, Lucky Red with Rai Cinema will be released on October 28th with 01.

THE HOLE - After 11 years it is Michelangelo Frammartino's return to cinema after "The four times". In August 1961 a group of young Piedmontese speleologists discovered at a depth of just under 700 meters one of the deepest caves in the world, the Abisso del Bifurto of the Pollino plateau, under the gaze of shepherds who witnessed the uncontaminated territory. A Doppio Nodo Double Bind production with Rai Cinema, will be released in theaters with Lucky Red.

In the other sections:

by Roberto Ando 'with Silvio Orlando music master in an old popular Neapolitan palace and' the closing film, presented Out of Competition, of Venice 78. Also in the Fuori Concorso there are also

by Leonardo Di Costanzo with Toni Servillo head of the prison guards of a prison in the process of being abandoned and Silvio Orlando in prison and THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL by Stefano Mordini, based on the novel of the same name by Edoardo Albinati (Rizzoli) with, among others, Benedetta Porcaroli, Valeria Golino, Riccardo Scamarcio, Jasmine Trinca and many promising young actors to evoke the environment and the historical social moment in which the Circeo massacre matured in the 70s. In the Fuori Concorso non fiction, that is, among documentaries, a lot of music: ENNIO by Giuseppe Tornatore monumental tribute to Morricone, DEANDRE '- Story of an employee by Roberto Lena,

by Giorgio Verdelli and then again DJANGO & DJANGO by Luca Rea in which Quentin Tarantino talks about his passion for Sergio Corbucci and the western spaghetti, while

is a documentary by Augusto Contento that starts from Bellocchio's films to tell the Italian decline. In competition at Orizzonti there is Laura Bispuri with IL PARADISO DEL PAVONE, while in the new Orizzonti Extra section there are two other Italian films: the intense

by Wilma Labate with a promising protagonist (Alma Noce), and

. by Roland Sejko with Pietro De Silva. And "Rebibbia lockdown" directed by Fabio Cavalli, a special event hosted by the Festival with a high value of individual and civil testimony. Among the many films at the Days of the Authors there is the collective ISOLATION (Michele Placido among the directors), THE GREAT SILENCE by Alessandro Gassmann by Maurizio De Giovanni, WELCOME VENICE by Andrea Segre at the opening of the Venetian Nights. And at Sic, M

by Alessandro Celli with Alessandro Borghi.