Independent filmmakers Manetti Bros after the comic book saga of Diabolik they come back with ‘US Palmesè’at the comedy-fairy tale with the meeting-clash between the world of soccer rich and glossy and the contagious simplicity of provincial people.
All linked to the memories of Palmsthe city where their mother was born and home to their family vacations for years. Right in this little town of Calabria the film that passes today to the takes place Rome Festival in the section Grand Public.
Here Don Vincenzo (Rocco Papaleo), a very dynamic and crazy retired farmer, has a truly bizarre idea to revive the team of soccer local: organize a fundraiser to recruit Etienne Morville (Blaise Afonso), former player of Milanwith a terrible character, but among the strongest and best paid in the world.
Even if reluctantly, Morville will leave Milan to move to Palms with his Lamborghinis full of horses thus trying to heal its image. TO Palms he will clash with a reality made of sincerity, but never do-gooder and sugary, in full Manetti stylewhich will lead everyone to review their lives.
“The soccer it is now a sport with too much media attention and in which too much money circulates and so – say the two directors – we wanted to tell the story of a champion who has lost his soul and finds himself Palms himself, but also represent a South beyond the usual negative rhetoric of crime and folklore. There are many young people who leave Palms – continue Manetti -, but then after a while they come back because they miss it. The South in short, it should never be underestimated.”
Morvillecan remember Mario Balotelli? “Yes and no, we were not directly inspired by him but when writing the film he often came to mind. He is someone who, just like Morvillebecause of the pressure he started to hate the soccerthe thing he loved most. We should invite him to see the film” they say Manetti. He says instead Rocco Papaleo joking: «I would have preferred with i Manetti Do Diabolik because I had the right physique and the right aptitude for crime, but other than that I agree with them that the South he needs to react and dream big just like my character, a southerner who dreams big.”
In the cast of ‘US Palmesè’ we also find: Giulia Maenza, Lisa Do Couto Teixeira, Max Mazzotta, Massimo De Lorenzo, Gianfelice Learned, Massimiliano Bruno, Guglielmo Favilla, Aurora Calabresi, Giuseppe Futia, Mario Russo, Luca Attadia, Salvatore Costa, Antonio Di Turi, Adriano Fedele with the participation of Guillaume De Tonquedec and with Claudia Gerini in the role of the poet Ferraro.
The film produced by Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Manetti Bros, Carlo Macchitellait’s a production Mompracem with Rai Cinema and will be released in theaters on March 20, 2025 by 01 Distribution.
«The film was born from our love for this special city, Palmswhich we wanted to tell as we know it, without claiming to be the only ones who know the truth, but probably the typical cities Palms from the Calabriadel South they are always told in another way, with a rhetoric that is always slightly negative. The South it is always told in the negative, crime, folklore. But we see something else when we go. But we want to tell this point of view because we think, as he says Rocco also, who is a southern side like us, who sometimes the South it self-destructs behind a somewhat self-destructive story.” The director says so Marco Manetti presenting together with his brother Anthony the movie ‘US Palmesè’which will be screened today at 6.30 pm Sinopoli room in the section Grand Public from the Rome Film Festival.
«In our film we don’t talk about judicial events – he adds – we talk about human corruption, the fact that sportespecially the soccerends up no longer being a sport, that the media attention, too much money around the soccerin some way they take away from the soccer the main characteristics of team sport. Because it makes individualism win, because it makes the desire to assert itself in the face of passion and pure fun win.”
«Somehow we thought of bringing together a champion who has lost his soul, who has lost his passion – continues the director – he goes to Southern Italya Palmswhich is a town to which we are very attached, because we come from there, our mother is from there, and he finds himself there. We came up with a little slogan that I don’t know if we will ever use in the production of the film, which somehow says this thing in a nutshell: he came to help the Palmesebut it will be there Palmese to help him”, he concludes.