Nanni moretti
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This time, she’s a reluctant, self-questioning filmmaker. The film is full of such poignant moments and small epiphanies that lend meaning and connection to a chaotic world.
The film focuses on a family’s quiet moments of connection in the lead up to the arrival of Arianna, a girl with whom Andrea exchanged letters after meeting at camp.
If there’s such a thing as a“Fellinian Rome,”there’s also a Morettian Italy, and it’s an Italy that is self-conscious, satirical, absurd, at times heartwarming and always full of personality.
Moretti’s latest feature, Il Sol dell’Avvenire— “A Brighter Tomorrow” in English — is in the running for the Palme d’Or, or the highest honor at the Cannes Film Festival, which this year runs from May 16 to 27.
Moretti previously suffered a mild heart attack in October last year.
Known as an acerbic moralist and social commentator, Moretti most recently competed in Cannes in 2023 with high-concept meta-comedy “A Brighter Tomorrow,” in which he stars as a Roman director who is shooting a period piece set in Rome in 1956.
Before being hospitalized he was in pre-production on a new film, details of which are not known.
Moretti has often constructed his films around his own persona, appearing as the central character, starting with his 1976 Super-8 debut “Io Sono un’Autarchico” and its follow-up, “Ecce Bombo,” which humorously captured the discontent gripping Italy in the bleak 1970s, and, of course, the autobiografical “Caro Diario,” 1994, which marked his international breakthrough.
(All are unable to leave until the new Pope takes up his office.)
Perfectly balanced, Habemus Papam opens by giving us the sense of a full-scale farce, with a journalist who effectively serves as our narrator and offers a stream of commentary that feels like that of a championship game, highlighting the excesses of even a serious business like religion.
Early bite-sized vignettes give way to several episodes of his journey south towards the Aeolian Islands, as “director Moretti” searches for some peace and refuge from the consumption-focused society that Pasolini feared was taking over Italy.
From there, the plot takes a spider’s path, with Moretti seeking greater and greater isolation, culminating with his friend Gerardo, a Joyce scholar who claims to never watch TV, becoming addicted to soap operas and running for the mainland and away from his principles.
The final third of this gem of a film is dedicated to a true story of absurdity in medicine in which Moretti turns to doctors and psychologists to solve his ills — a recurring motif in his thinking cinema.
La stanza del Figlio/The Son’s Room (2001)
This heartfelt tale about a family grappling with the death of their 17-year-old son and brother, Andrea, stars Laura Morante and Jasmine Trinca as a grieving mother and sister, respectively, alongside Moretti as the father, Giovanni.
He was celebrated in 2024 with a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for the restaured version of “Ecce Bombo” which screened in the Venice Classics section.
Nanni Moretti In Intensive Care In Rome Hospital Following Heart Attack
Italian director Nanni Moretti was reported to be in intensive care in stable condition Wednesday evening after suffering a heart attack earlier in the day.
Italian media reported that the Dear Diary and The Son’s Room filmmaker had fallen ill in the afternoon and been taken to Rome’s San Camillo Hospital, where he was operated on immediately.
Moretti previously suffered a heart attack last October, which forced him to cancel an appearance at the premiere of Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman’s drama Vittoria, which he produced under the banner of his company Sacher Film.
Before Il Sol dell’Avvenire took aim at the ambivalence of the contemporary cinema landscape (including Netflix) and explored what it means to make an ethical film, Mia Madre dug into what happens when the personal meets the political.
Buy’s director aims to make a film about striking factory workers while her mother passes away in a nearby hospital.
Fans of Moretti will recognize his long-running taste for turning the camera on the process of filmmaking. But when it comes time for Cardinal Melville, a surprise candidate expertly played by Michel Piccoli, to walk out onto the balcony and greet the world’s faithful (and its curious skeptics), he has a panic attack. In La stanza del figlio’s opening sequence, we see a more mature Moretti returning from a jog and pausing to listen to singing worshippers on the street.
Moretti plays Margherita’s brother Giovanni, who contributes pasta dishes and offbeat wisdom at their mother’s hospital bed, while John Turturro makes an appearance as Barry Huggins, the Italian-American actor flown in for the shoot who mistakes Buy for the taxi driver and acts as another thorn in her side.
Carrying less of a performative punch than some of Moretti’s other films — including Il Sol dell’Avenire, which references Fellini’s 81⁄2 by representing filmmaking as another circus — this soft-footed drama makes for an enlightening watch.
On the trusty Vespa, he then travels to Ostia to revisit the place where Pier Paolo Pasolini was killed. Moretti, as Michele, yells the implicit insult “You deserve Alberto Sordi!” to a pontificating bourgeois Roman at a café in one of its many quotable lines.
Caro Diario/Dear Diary (1993)
For many fans, Caro Diario is quintessential Moretti.
“Non ce la faccio,” Melville says to those around him. He just can’t do it — and he means it.
A surprising film about responsibility, faith and personal choice, it tracks the arrival of a psychoanalyst, Brezzi (played by Moretti), a first in the history of the Vatican, to try to “cure” the new pope of his panic.
He was seen most recently at the Bari International Film & TV Festival in southern Italy in March for a retrospective of his work. Critics are celebrating the new film as a return to classic morettiano form, with the trademarks of the idiosyncratic director on full show.
Moretti’s unique brand of auteur cinema grew out of sociopolitical satire and generous high comedy, with his 1976 feature film debut Io sono un autarchico (“I Am Self-Sufficient”) growing in popularity over the decades to become a cult classic.
Since then, some clear staples of Moretti’s cinema have emerged and remained, but in myriad combinations: There’s his dynamic presence as an actor (and favorite protagonist); a jovially ironic style that tackles serious issues with the lightest touch; and a seeming fascination with sports, perhaps coming from his childhood love of water polo, which he manages to relate to the deepest of existential questions.
When Melville escapes from St. Peter’s, prison-break style, the film splits in two, with one thread exploring Melville’s existential questioning about the other life he might have lived had he pursued theatre and not theology, and the other highlighting the psychiatrist Professor Brezzi’s attempts to help the gathered cardinals have some fun by organizing a volleyball tournament.
The film was an arthouse hit and earned Moretti the Palme d’Or and the David di Donatello for Best Film.
Tip: To fully appreciate the gentle pacing of the film even after it’s over, listen to the soundtrack by composer Nicola Piovani as the storyline lingers with you.
Habemus Papam/We Have a Pope (2011)
The brash premise of this hybrid comedy-psychological drama speaks for itself: When the Pope dies, a new one must be elected by the cardinals and the world waits with bated breath for white smoke to rise from St.
Peter’s Basilica announcing the election. A wonderful first-taste of Moretti, Ecce Bombo could be compared to Fellini’s I Vitelloni for the tail-end of Italy’s student activism. As Giovanni — a psychiatrist who struggles to stay in the profession after the devastating loss — Moretti gives us a vision of life made worthwhile through small acts, with a powerful message about accepting life’s absurdities alongside its joys.