Estate romana

Rosella, an actress who has left the stage, goes back to her Rome home where a quite dilettante pair live: a Napoletan artist and his assistant. This is the starting point for Garrone to set up his unique style, half way between fiction and documentary. We see then a Rome away from the touristic icons but alive and vibrant, constantly building itself, the perfect setting for a neo realistic set where the film stage becomes a theatre. The city itself is a canvas where interactions take place, where dialogues that seem to be ad lib can be developed. A portrait of bohemians in the Lazio capital, in the opposite corner of what Jep Gambardella, the character created by another director split between Rome and Naples, would show us. So far and so near. (Gijón International Film Festival)