Season 3 of the My Brilliant Friend series based on Elena Ferrante’s bestselling novels will soon be on our screens (Rai1 is broadcasting 4 evenings from 6 February) this time directed by Daniele Luchetti not Saverio Costanzo who has once again co-written the screenplay with Francesco Piccolo, Laura Paolucci and the mysterious author herself, Elena Ferrante.
Based on Ferrante’s third book, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, the story follows “those who leave”, Elena, and “those who stay”, Lila. The two brilliant friends are now adults: Lila who married at 16, had a young son, left her husband and comfortable life and is now working in a factory under tough conditions, and Elena has left the neighbourhood, studied at university in Pisa and published a successful novel, all of which has opened doors to an affluent and high-brow world. Both of them have tried to break the barriers that would have destined them to imprisonment in poverty, ignorance and submission. “I come from a family where women were not able to study”, says Luchetti “I know Lila’s anger well, as it was that of my mother when I brought girls from university home and she would regard them with admiration and rage”.
The new season shot in Naples, Caserta, Torre Annunziata, Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Florence, Turin, and on the famous shoreline of Viareggio. The two lead actresses, Gaia Girace (Lila) and Margherita Mazzucco (Elena) continue, now moving through the Seventies against a background of great change and cultural shifts, of hopes, uncertainties, tensions and challenges. With regards to the historical period, Luchetti emphasises that his intention was to show how the women at that time were fighting for freedom in an interesting and truthful way: “those years seem close to me given my age, but it’s not at all the same for the actors so I had to describe this unknown era. I showed them how to talk when talking about ideology, how to expound on politics without becoming ridiculous, how to make the viewers believe that the characters are living through a cultural earthquake that began in the conventional Sixties and brought a new way of seeing things.”
Find out more about the locations in the summary on our site
(Carmen Diotaiuti)