«Many years ago in interviews I coined a somewhat silly phrase: I always want to make the same film, but always better. At a certain point I said to myself: no, I don’t want to make the same film again, but this time also thanks to the work of Valia Santella and Federica Pontremoli I imagined a love story.” Thus Nanni Moretti in the eagerly awaited press conference of «It will happen tonight», the first of the five Italian films in competition at the Venice Film Festival, freely based on some stories from the collection «Legami» by Eshkol Nevo (Gramma Feltrinelli), which marks the director’s return to the Lido after 37 years. The last presence in the Venetian selection was with «Palombella Rossa» in 1989. And, welcomed by the applause of those present, the director lets himself go into a moment of emotion.
With this film, a romantic and not at all ideological Nanni Moretti arrives in Venice, in the very year in which highly political films dedicated to the tale of the horrors of the world, led by Gaza and Palestine, are shown at the Festival.
The protagonists of this romantic comedy with splashes of real brunetteism are Matteo (Louis Garrel) and Greta (Jasmine Trinca). He is a bookseller, she is an actress and their story takes place over many years. Matteo meets Greta in a wedding dress for the first time in Rome. She is going to get married, but despite this she stops to play a game with him. Matteo is struck by it. Years pass. Matteo is in San Sebastián for a Bruce Springsteen concert and finds Greta, who at that moment is looking for her missing daughter. Their paths cross again. Some more time passes and Matteo meets her a third time, in a Roman café: Greta is still with her husband and is absorbed in motherhood; in the meantime Matteo also has a new wife. A structure that seems to be that of a love that continues to reappear over the years with the two protagonists always meeting at the wrong time.
On the relationship with the Venice Film Festival, Moretti is keen to underline: «I read in the newspapers that I was angry with this festival, but that’s not true. Simply in these thirty years my films were never ready in the summer to be shown here, there is no other reason.”
The over twenty-year partnership with Jasmine Trinca? «Twenty-seven years ago – says the director – some assistants went to schools in Rome to do small interviews with girls and boys for “The Son’s Room” and when I saw his audition I immediately understood that he was a special person. I understood it from how they framed her, Jasmine truly has a great luminosity.” Trinca replies jokingly: «I finally know why he chose me, I never understood it. What about Nanni! He is the person to whom I owe the fact that I am here among you today. It was nice to work with him again.”
Garrel, a sort of alter ego of the director in the film, says: «I love Moretti, even though he made me repeat the scene in which I shoot a basket hundreds of times and each time asking the director to show how good he was in making me see it. Obviously in the scooter scene I was expecting a Vespa to be used, but I discovered that it was instead a Japanese scooter. And he tells me: I did it because I don’t like quotes.”
Finally, Moretti recalls what is different compared to the “Palombella Rossa” years: «After two years I opened my own cinema, the Sacher, and that is a daily job. As a director you can put your work aside for a few days, even a few months, but that of a film exhibitor is a daily job in which you propose to your audience the most urgent story for you at that moment.”
Closing of the press conference in a totally Morettian way. As soon as the stop to questions was announced, Moretti said with extreme irony to the journalists: “Sorry, I really wanted to talk about the Italian political situation, it means I’ll do it another time.”
It’s Oasis fever at the Lido for Liam and Noel Gallagher
In a year in which Hollywood is absent from the Lido, two of the most anticipated stars of the Festival come from music: the Manchester rocker brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, for the out-of-competition world premiere presentation of the documentary on their reunion, with the world tour, «Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger» by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, based on the screenplay by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders). The non-fiction film – which after its debut at the festival will be in cinemas from 10 September, also in Imax in some theaters of the UCI circuit, before arriving in streaming exclusively on Disney+ at the end of the year – through rehearsals and concerts around the world tells the story of the reconciliation between the two brothers, who had interrupted the path of Oasis (and also a large part of their personal contacts) in 2009 after a furious argument in Paris, before a concert that was no longer held.
The fans at the Lido have been waiting for the Gallaghers at the entrance to the casino building since the morning. Like true stars, the two brothers did not indulge in the press conference where only Knight and the two directors were present, but took part in the photocall. Upon arrival, Liam greeted the fans from the speedboat. Then at the photocall the frontman alongside the more composed Noel joked with the journalists, even bringing his brother to smile. Finally, when Mostra director Alberto Barbera joined them for the photos, Liam Gallagher jokingly asked him if he was George Clooney before posing together.
A new harmony between Noel and Liam that we see take shape in the documentary, in a triumph of their successes on stage, from Wonderwall to Champagne supernova, from Stand by me to Don’t look back in anger, which becomes the very symbol of their story. A journey that starts from the silence between the two brothers at the first rehearsals and slowly finds them in symbiosis on stage.