(2023, Italia, 140')
After the interlude of the television series My Brilliant Friend, the director of The Solitude of Prime Numbers returns for the third time in Competition at the Venice Film Festival with a story set in Rome in the 1950s. An aspiring actress, a young woman from a working-class background on the verge of getting engaged to a wealthy man, goes to the Cinecittà studios to audition as an extra. The hours spent at Cinecittà, suddenly catapulted into the set of an American film set in ancient Egypt, will be a true coming-of-age experience for her.
Director and screenwriter Saverio Costanzo was born in Rome in 1975. His first film, Private of 2004, won a Pardo d’Oro in Locarno, a Donatello’s David, and a Nastro d’Argento for best debuting director. In 2007, Costanzo presented In Memory of Me at the Berlin Film Festival, followed in 2010 by The Solitude of Prime Numbers, entered in the main competition at the Venice Film Festival. In 2013, he directed the Italian version of Israeli series In Treatment, and in 2014, he was back at the VFF with Hungry Hearts. The film earned interpreters Alba Rohrwacher and Adam Driver a Coppa Volpi. In 2018, Saverio Costanzo directed My Brilliant Friend. He was a juror at the 2021 Venice Film Festival.