Italy’s Medusa Films has submitted two films for consideration at the Cannes Film Festival: Bernardo Bertolucci‘s “Io e te” and Sergio Castellitto‘s Sarajevo-set English-language drama “Into the World,” with Penelope Cruz and Emile Hirsch. (Some sources are calling the film Twice Born).
Two time Oscar winner Bertolucci (The Last Emperor) and director of other award-winning films, like Last Tango in Paris, comes back from a 10 year hiatus to give us Io e Te, (Me and You) “the story of Lorenzo, a 14-year-old boy who tells his parents that he went on a ski trip, only to hide out in the basement to try to help his much older half-sister, Olivia, shak off her addiction to heroin” (based on a book by Niccolò Ammaniti). At first, this movie was going to be released in 3D, but Bertolucci changed his mind and called 3D “vulgarly commercial”.
Sergio Castellitto’s Into The World adapts the bestseller written by his wife, Margaret Mazzantini, and follows a single mother who returns to Sarajevo with her teenage son to face the past she shared with her late husband. This is the second time Castellitto has acted with Cruz in a film that was based on a story written by his wife: Non Ti Muovere (Don’t Move) is one of my top ten favorites of all time.
Both of these films have huge potential for success and for exportation and my guess is that they will be on the Cannes lineup.
And speaking of Cannes, I’ve applied for press credentials, and it’s probably a long shot but I’ll go if I get them.
I Love Italian Everything 