original title:
Viva la sposa
directed by:
cast:
screenplay:
cinematography:
editing:
set design:
costume design:
music:
producer:
Alessandra Acciai, Giorgio Magliulo, Roberto Lombardi, Francesca Feder, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Arnaud Louvet
production:
Malia, Aeternam Films, Les Films du Fleuve, Rai Cinema, supported by Ministero della Cultura, in association with BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas, with the support of Eurimages, Regione Lazio, CNC
distribution:
world sales:
country:
Italy/France/Belgium
year:
2015
film run:
87'
format:
colour
aspect ratio:
2.35:1
release date:
22/10/2015
festivals & awards:
Nicola lives as a puppeteer in one of the bleaker parts of the outskirts of Rome, among petty criminals and drifters, immigrants and laborers. He drinks too much but takes care of the adolescentSalvatore, who may be or not be his son by a local prostitute. His widowed mother has tried to set him up with his schoolfriend Sofia for twenty years, but somehow, they never got together. One day while driving around in his van, he hits and kills Sabatino, an old man, in what at first appears to be an accident. But the old man, who lived off insurance scams by staging accidents with unsuspecting drivers, was simply drunk and miscalculated while stepping in front of Nicola’s car. Still shaken, Nicola offers his help to Sabatino’s son and his mentally handicapped brother and is drawn himself into a netherworld of petty crime gone wrong where everybody’s lives are damaged by the unintended consequences of their actions. He makes his way through the days and nights of a country where there is no hope, but neither is there despair, since the opposite of hope at times is not despair but fatalism.
DIRECTOR'S NOTES:
The title says it all. Long Live the Bride! A beautiful blonde steps into the lives of an assortment of poor devils. A bride who turns heads: looking at the bride helps them all to go on, but real life is something else altogether. Wittgenstein would say that philosophy is one way to smash idols, but also a way to stop creating new ones. Yet…without idols we can barely get by at all.