I baci mai dati, written and directed by Roberta Torre, one of the most innovative authors in Italian cinema, will be the opening film in Controcampo italiano – the competitive section which since last year has been a window onto the trends in Italian film – at the 67th Venice International Film Festival (September 1 – 11, 2010), directed by Marco Müller and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta.

 

I baci mai dati, starring Donatella Finocchiaro, Pino Micol, Giuseppe Fiorello, Carla Marchese, Valentina Giordanella, Martina Galletta, Alessio Vassallo, with special guest star Piera degli Esposti, will have its world premiere screening Friday September 3rd in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido. The film is produced by Amedeo Bacigalupo and by Roberta Torre for Nuvola Film and Rosetta Film in collaboration with Adriana Chiesa Enterprises, the Regione Siciliana, the Council for the Cultural Heritage, the Environment and Public Education – Department of the Cultural Heritage, the Enviroment and the Permanent Education and the Sicily Film Commission, as part of the Sensi Contemporanei Cinema e Audiovisivo program, with the contribution of the Ministry for the Cultural Heritage and Activities – General Direction for Cinema. International distribution by Adriana Chiesa Enterprises.

 

The Jury of Controcampo italiano – which will judge the feature-length films in this section, a maximum of 7 entries, fiction and non-fiction, all of them world premiere screenings to be shown in the Sala Grande – will be composed of Valerio Mastrandrea (president), one of the most important and versatile actors in Italian cinema, the winner this year of the David di Donatello for Best Actor in The First Beautiful Thing (La prima cosa bella) by Paolo Virzì; director Susanna Nicchiarelli, who won the first edition of Controcampo italiano in 2009 with Cosmonaut (Cosmonauta), a debut work that after Venice was presented in over thirty film festivals, winning ten awards in Italy and abroad; the president of the Ente dello Spettacolo and director of the “Rivista del cinematografo” Dario Edoardo Viganò. The Jury will attribute the Controcampo italiano award with no ex-aequo prizes. The winning director will receive a 40,000 Euro voucher offered by Kodak, to spend on negative film stock in the 35 or 16 mm format (at the discretion of the winner), that will give him the possibility of making another feature-length film.

 

I baci mai dati by Roberta Torre is the story of Manuela, a thirteen-year-old who was forced to grow up in a hurry, who lives in the suburbs of a major city in southern Italy, Librino. One day, out of boredom and just for fun, she pretends she can do miracles. People believe her and from that moment on a famished and needy humanity bursts into her life, asking her for just about everything: from a lost job to victory in the football championship. This upsets the microcosm in which the people involved in the story live, and they will find themselves stuck in events that are greater than them. Until what appears as an extraordinary and unexplainable event actually takes place.

 

Roberta Torre has been a protagonist of the Venice International Film Festival since the early days of her career. In the Nineties she presented her first shorts here: in 1994 Senti amor mio? in the Panorama Italiano section, then Appunti per un film su Tano and La Vita a volo d’angelo, respectively in 1995 and 1996 at Finestra sulle imagini. Again at Venice, she presented her debut feature–length film to great acclaim: Tano da morire, winner of the Luigi De Laurentiis prize for a Debut Film. In 2000 she returned with South Side Story (Sud Side Stori) in the Sogni e visioni section.