Nineteen-year-old Billy (Matteo Oscar Giuggioli) lives on the outskirts of a provincial city in Northern Italy in a residential area bordered by a river. He lives with his emotionally unstable mother, Regina (Carla Signoris), who has limitless love for her son. At 9 years old, Billy was a child prodigy, full of life, who invented and hosted a successful music podcast. Now he doesn’t know what to do with his life and the vitality of his childhood is a clear, but distant, memory that obsesses him.
His path crosses that of Zippo (Alessandro Gassmann), a former rocker who walked out of a concert at the height of his success, got on a bus and disappeared. His talent abandoned, he has come to the neighbourhood to stay with a friend, Massimo (Giuseppe Battiston), in a wooden houseboat anchored on the river.
The Northern Italy portrayed in Emilia Mazzacurati’s debut film is filled with contradictions where her characters refuse to adapt their humanity and feelings to a present-day pervaded by an interest in money and speculation, retaining their idiosyncratic identities.
The present-day province, filled with contradictions, serves as a mirror for a confused generation and a population of broken families and solitude where everyone tries to survive as they can. In this apparent “non-place”, forceful human feelings develop, strongly rooted in a sort of provincial post-modernism.
This province was created by shooting in several places in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, mostly Campoformido (Udine), especially the Villa Primavera area and the hamlet of Basaldella: here the suburban neighbourhood of terraced villas, roads and schools was recreated. The four-week shoot also included locations such as Cividale del Friuli, Moimacco, Basiliano and a part of the Stella river.
In addition to FVG, the director chose to shoot in Veneto, in particular on the floating house belonging to Pierluigi Boiago, a prefabricated building on a raft moored for years on the banks of the Bacchiglione river in Paltana, Padua.
Nineteen-year-old Billy (Matteo Oscar Giuggioli) lives on the outskirts of a provincial city in Northern Italy in a residential area bordered by a river. He lives with his emotionally unstable mother, Regina (Carla Signoris), who has limitless love for her son. At 9 years old, Billy was a child prodigy, full of life, who invented and hosted a successful music podcast. Now he doesn’t know what to do with his life and the vitality of his childhood is a clear, but distant, memory that obsesses him.
His path crosses that of Zippo (Alessandro Gassmann), a former rocker who walked out of a concert at the height of his success, got on a bus and disappeared. His talent abandoned, he has come to the neighbourhood to stay with a friend, Massimo (Giuseppe Battiston), in a wooden houseboat anchored on the river.
The Northern Italy portrayed in Emilia Mazzacurati’s debut film is filled with contradictions where her characters refuse to adapt their humanity and feelings to a present-day pervaded by an interest in money and speculation, retaining their idiosyncratic identities.
The present-day province, filled with contradictions, serves as a mirror for a confused generation and a population of broken families and solitude where everyone tries to survive as they can. In this apparent “non-place”, forceful human feelings develop, strongly rooted in a sort of provincial post-modernism.
This province was created by shooting in several places in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, mostly Campoformido (Udine), especially the Villa Primavera area and the hamlet of Basaldella: here the suburban neighbourhood of terraced villas, roads and schools was recreated. The four-week shoot also included locations such as Cividale del Friuli, Moimacco, Basiliano and a part of the Stella river.
In addition to FVG, the director chose to shoot in Veneto, in particular on the floating house belonging to Pierluigi Boiago, a prefabricated building on a raft moored for years on the banks of the Bacchiglione river in Paltana, Padua.
Billy (19 years old) was a child prodigy who invented and hosted a successful music podcast at the age of 9. Now he lives with his eccentric mother, Regina, is secretly in love with his neighbour, spends his time with children aged between 8 and 12 and doesn’t know what to do with his life. That is until he meets his childhood idol, Zippo, a rocker who disappeared off the scene years earlier. The similarities between the two men inspire them to find a way to tackle life. However, things don’t always go as we’d wish…
