Where it was filmed 'I Can Quit Whenever I Want'

A sweeping aerial shot of Rome by night takes us over the La Sapienza University: it is here, in front of the statue of Minerva, the symbol of the University, that the story of our group of researchers begins. Pietro Zinni is a neurobiologist hoping for a permanent position at the University, who is denied not only the contract he was hoping for, but renewed funding for the project he’s working on too. Most of the opening scenes of the film take place inside Rome’s founding university.

Pietro hasn’t got the guts to tell his partner, Giulia, that he’s now unemployed, and instead, decides to use his scientific know-how to produce and sell a drug that could be considered ‘legal’ as it has yet to be included in the list of narcotics issued by the Ministry of Health. He puts together a gang of brilliant minds specialised in a wide range of subjects, which moves around Rome (we recognise Via Cristoforo Colombo and the EUR lake) in a van belonging to the University that Arturo, an overworked and underpaid archaeologist, uses to move between various sites in the city. The labs used to create the pills were reconstructed at a film studio.

The business created by Pietro and his companions seems to work, and the members of the gang start getting cocky. Mattia and Giorgio, two Latin experts who work as cash-in-hand petrol station attendants by night, rent a room in a hotel with a massive panoramic terrace that becomes the location of parties and the group’s headquarters: here, against the backdrop of St. Peter’s Basilica, the group discusses how they can make 10kg of pills in just a few hours for Murena, who has kidnapped Giulia.