Toni Colette and Monica Bellucci together for the first time in a dark comedy by Catherine Hardwicke: after Tell It Like a Woman, the Italian collective film screened at the UN before landing on the Oscar stage for best original song, the American director is engaged in a new enterprise for women.
Mafia Mamma, shot entirely in Italy with an almost all-Italian cast and crew, tells the story of an American woman at a crossroads in life who finds herself parachuted into being the boss of a crime family.
"It was fun, we filmed between Rome and Bracciano, I hadn't done many comedies in my life so it was a new experience", Bellucci who plays the role of Bianca, the 'adviser' told ANSA of the Balbanos at war with a rival clan for control of the territory.
"Monica was the only person we approached for the role of Bianca. It was phenomenal to juxtapose her energy and sense of humor with Toni's," said Hardwicke, who was brought on to direct by Colette. he had already worked with her on Miss You Already.
In Mafia Mamma, in US theaters from April 14, Kristin Balbano Jordan "suddenly finds herself in a world she doesn't understand a thing about. She's a totally out of touch fish."
"It was the first time I worked in Italy, but it won't be the last".
Accompanying the adventures of Kristin and Bianca is the soundtrack by the British Alex Heffes: "I used instruments such as the mandolin, the accordion and the trumpet to evoke the local color, the instruments of the country bands, with a wink to the music of The Godfather, a film Kristen never had time to see."
The international cast also includes Sophia Nomvete, in the part of Kristin's best friend who eventually gets her out of trouble with the Italian judiciary, but also Alfonso Perugini and Francesco Mastroianni, her bodyguards, and Giulio Corso in the role of Lorenzo/Rodolfo, the new love interest who, like her, has something (a lot) to hide.
"Toni, Katherine,
Monica and I are women who are in our 20s and have had a mountain of life and work experience," said producer Amanda Shters, who had the original idea developed by screenwriters Michael Feldman and Debbie Jhoon: " Women who are no longer young, who have let their children go their own way and have given up a lot but are always capable of reinventing themselves.
That's why Mafia Mamma is universal."
