original title:
Il demone di Laplace
directed by:
cast:
Alessandro Zonfrilli, Carlotta Mazzoncini, Duccio Giulivi, Ferdinando D'Urbano, Silvano Bertolin, Simone Moscato, Simone Valeri, Walter Smorti
screenplay:
cinematography:
editing:
set design:
music:
production:
country:
Italy
year:
2017
film run:
105'
format:
b/w
festivals & awards:
A glass in free fall. Have you ever thought if it is possible to calculate into how many pieces it can break into? After numerous experiments, a team of researchers succeeds in doing just this apparently impossible task.
Attracted to their experiment, a mysterious professor invites the scientists in his isolated mansion to know more about their studies. However, when they arrive, they are not greeted by their host but they are faced with a strange model of the mansion, in which some absolutely normal but incredible actions are acted.
The researchers will soon understand to be involved in a new experiment in which they’ll have to play a very different role than usual: that of the glass in free fall.
DIRECTOR’S NOTES:
Does free will exist? Or is there a predetermined destiny for each one of us?
For thousands of years the man has been faced by this question, without finding satisfactory answers. On the issue, about two centuries ago, Pierre Simon Laplace, a French mathematician and philosopher, took an extreme stand: the universe is a huge clock and all entities, including humans, act as cogs. So there isn’t free will. Based on this theory, “The Laplace’s Demon” is born. It’s a thriller about destiny and free will, simulating a reality ruled by deterministic laws in a simple way, thanks to a story rich of paradoxical situations, in which philosophy isn’t the main theme of the movie, but rather an engine that starts the story and overwhelms the characters.