Where it was filmed 'Strangeness'

1920. Luigi Pirandello (Toni Servillo) returns to Sicily for Giovanni Verga’s 80th birthday, but on his arrival in Girgenti (present-day Agrigento) he is greeted with the news of the death of his beloved nursemaid Maria Stella. Wishing to organize the funeral himself, he comes into contact with Nofrio and Bastiano (Valentino Picone and Salvo Ficarra), unusual undertakers who enjoy amateur dramatics.

Most of the shoot took place in Sicily where the film is set: the borgo of Erice provided its alleyways and the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, where a funeral is held. Locations in Trapani were set up in piazza Umberto I and the train station.

There is also a cameo from the city of Catania where Giovanni Verga (Renato Carpentieri) was born: the set, with carriages, horses, cars and extras in costumes from the early 1900s, was located in the monumental frame of via Crociferi and at the crossroads with Via Antonino di Sangiuliano.

Palermo provided several historic buildings as locations: Palazzo Burgio, Palazzo Branciforte, the Gancia State Archive, the town hall where the undertakers negotiate the timing of the burial for Pirandello’s nursemaid, and the cloister of the Monastery di Santa Caterina, where the death of the abbess is announced.

The production also shot on location in Tuscany, around the train stations of Torrenieri and San Giovanni d’Asso in Montalcino (Siena).

An inspired Pirandello, persecuted by a crowd of characters that knock daily at his mind, finally crystalises an idea that has been brewing for some time with the unwitting help of an amateur theatre group: part of the shoot took place in the former Cineteatro in via Roma, Castel Madama (Roma).

A year later, 1921, at the Teatro Valle of Rome, the debut performance of Six Characters in Search of An Authorgathers a full and prestigious crowd. In the stalls are Nofrio and Bastiano, invited by the author. The performance begins and, like all those around them, the two men are surprised and delighted by the paradoxical situations that unfold in the comedy right up to the unexpected ending.