Happy Days Motel (first feature)

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Happy Days Motel

Happy Days Motel

Happy Days Motel

original title:

Happy Days Motel

directed by:

cinematography:

editing:

costume design:

music:

Toni Virgillito

country:

Italy

year:

2012

film run:

96'

format:

colour

release date:

30/03/2013

festivals & awards:

  • OFF PLUS CAMERA 2013: New Italian Cinema

Happy Days Motel is at the same time a Road Movie, a contemporary noir and a surreal and acid comedy. It’s about the interrupted travels of an ordinary man, Balti (Lino Guanciale) working for a dubious company, downsized from IT to deliver packages whose content he ignores. He ends up in the suspended and unreal “Happy Days Motel, where his life collides with four absurd characters: LAURA (Valeria Cavalli) a middle class lady, not a detail out of place, whose daughter dies after five years of coma, she’s been wondering aimlessly ever since only to stop and settel on the motel’s rocking chair, DUSTIN (Luigi Iacuzio) a male prostitute who loves to get stabbed and who lets every single one of his clients undergo a detailed preliminary analysis to be able to guarantee them 100% satisfaction on all possible levels. The platonic and ineluctable love story between Candy, (Valeria Belardelli) a compulsive teenager ran away who spends her time lining up cans at the supermarket’s shelves and Lupo (Luciano Curreli) , a 50 something heroine addict, who used to be famous for a cookie commercial.
Balti’s arrival at the motel will unleash a chain reaction that will oblie everyone to confront their deepest desires.