Italy’s on a roll!
The Italian docudrama Caesar Must Die from directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani has won the Golden Bear for best film at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival!
Everybody making predictions called it at second place, but the jury, headed by Mike Leigh gave it the Berlinale’s top prize, and Adopt Films has acquired the rights for a US release.
The Taviani brothers, both in their early 80s, thanked the international jury led by British director Mike Leigh and sent their greetings to the inmates of Rome’s Rebibbia prison, including former mafia leaders, who starred in the film.
“I hope that someone, going home, after seeing ‘Caesar Must Die’ will think that even an inmate, on whose head is a terrible punishment, is, and remains, a man. And this thanks to the sublime words of Shakespeare,” Vittorio Taviani said.
The two filmmakers spent six months following the rehearsals for the play. The documentary does not dwell on the crimes the inmates have committed, but shows the actors immerse themselves in the play’s web of friendship and betrayal, power, dishonesty and violence. But after the premiere, the cell doors slam shut behind Caesar, Brutus and the others, leaving them to return to their lives behind bars.
“We chose ‘Julius Caesar’ for one clear reason. We were working in a prison, that meant it was easy to get the message across with this play where actors are talking about freedom, about tyranny, about assassinations, and murder,” Paolo Taviani said .
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