The Last Pulcinella (second feature)

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The Last Pulcinella (L'ultimo Pulcinella)

The Last Pulcinella (L'ultimo Pulcinella)

original title:

L'ultimo Pulcinella

directed by:

cinematography:

costume design:

producer:

Giorgio Magliulo, Maria Bellini

production:

Faro Film, Rai Cinema, supported by Ministero della Cultura, Compagnia Italiana Centro Europeo di Teatro d'Arte

distribution:

world sales:

country:

Italy

year:

2008

film run:

89'

format:

35mm - colour

release date:

13/03/2009

The Last Pulcinella is liberally inspired by Roberto Rossellini’s unedited screenplay and directed by Maurizio Scaparro, starring Massimo Ranieri. This is the story of the often-difficult relationship between a young Neapolitan, in search of new creative inspirations and a life far away from his hometown, and a father who hardly manages to survive as a street artist, acting out the “Stories of Pulcinella” in the Piazzas of Naples. It is also a film about a changing world, about generations that have trouble understanding each other. It is set in today’s Naples and in the troubled outskirts of Paris, another crossroads of difficult and often violent contradictions, where father and son will attempt to build new dreams, one instrument being the theatre. Michelangelo, an actor who survives by impersonating the traditional Neapolitan character of Pulcinella wherever he can find an audience, is forced to leave Naples for Paris when his son escapes to the outskirts of the French city after witnessing a mafia killing. Michelangelo is reunited with an old friend who teaches at the Sorbonne and here he meets Marie, also an actress and a seemingly ageless woman who owns and looks after a well-respected theatre. Michelangelo seeks the help of his son’s girlfriend, Cecilia, an influential figure among many of the neighbourhood’s Arab, French and Italian youths, and together with Marie tries to stage a play about Pulcinella, using an original and unperformed idea by Roberto Rossellini. If they succeed, they will make the dream of “les italiens”, the many Italian immigrants of the past, come true.