Cinema Italian Style: The Life Apart
November 9, 2024
The “Best of Youth” director Marco Tullio Giordana finds the music in the moving tale of a piano prodigy who plays her way out of her mother’s shadow.
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Passes: $125 | $100 SIFF Members - Access to all Cinema Italian Style screenings
SIFF year-round passes are not valid for Cinema Italian Style screenings.
Adapted from Mariapia Veladiano’s acclaimed eponymous novel and co-scripted with Marco Bellocchio and Gloria Malatesta, the film opens in the beautiful Northern Italian city of Vicenza in 1980, where wealthy couple Maria (Valentina Bellè) and Osvaldo Macola (Paolo Pierobon) are soon to have their first child around Christmas Eve. Their newborn daughter Rebecca has a red birthmark on her face, and by age six, she also demonstrates a fascination with and talent for the piano, fostered and supported by her piano virtuoso aunt. As Rebecca grows, so too does her skill. Her extraordinary powers simply lie in music, allowing her to find solace, confidence, and further acceptance in the world. In the hands of Giordana, the story is as enlivened with the empyrean forces of art and creation as it is pensive with regard to its character’s earthly sufferings and destructive relationships.
- Original Language Title: La vita accanto
- Director: Marco Tullio Giordana
- Principal Cast: Sonia Bergamasco, Paolo Pierobon, Valentina Bellè, Beatrice Barison
- Country: Italy
- Year: 2024
- Running Time: 114 min.
- Producer: Simone Gattoni, Marco Bellocchio, Beppe Caschetto, Bruno Benetti
- Screenplay: Marco Bellocchio, Marco Tullio Giordana, Gloria Malatesta
- Cinematographers: Roberto Forza
- Editors: Francesca Calvelli, Claudio Misantoni
- Music: Dario Marianelli
- Filmography: Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy (2012), Once You’re Born You Can No Longer Hide (2005), The Best of Youth (2003)
- Language: Italian
- International Sales: Intramovies