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PRODUCTION Italy / Belgium / China

Cristiano Bortone filming Coffee, the first Italian co-production with China

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- 10 August marks the start of filming in Bolzano for the Roman director and producer; his film tells three stories set in different places through one common element: coffee

Cristiano Bortone filming Coffee, the first Italian co-production with China
Miriam Dalmazio and Dario Aita, shooting Coffee

10 August marks the beginning of filming in Bolzano of Coffee [+see also:
trailer
interview: Cristiano Bortone
interview: Cristiano Bortone
film profile
]
, the new movie by director and producer Cristiano Bortone. The production team will relocate from Bolzano to Trieste to continue filming, and then to Belgium and China, between Beijing and the Yunnan area.

The movie, recognised for cultural interest, is the first official co-production between Italy and China after the signing of the treaty agreed to by the two countries, and Belgium is also joining the project: Orisa Produzioni, the director’s company, together with Rai Cinema, Savage Film, Road Pictures and China Blue. The movie is being staged with the support of MIBACT, BLS - Film Fund & Commission dell'Alto Adige, Screen Flanders, and D-Hive Film Fund, and will be distributed in Italy by Officine Ubu.

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Bortone, who is making his fifth feature film with this movie (among his films, Red Like the Sky [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, honoured with the 2007 David Giovani Award, stands out particularly), has taught screenplay and production since 2013 at the Beijing Film Academy after studying Chinese language and culture for many years.

Through a common element, coffee, the movie tells three stories set in three parts of the world, far apart from each other; three destinies that intertwine, prisoners of the confusing and uncertain times that our world is living through. “The sommeliers say that coffee has three flavours: bitter, sour and fragrant. These three flavours have inspired the movie,” declares the director, who has written the screenplay together with Annalaura Ciervo, Matthew Thompson, Shi Minghua and Shi Minghui.

In Italy, Renzo (Dario Aita, The Front Line [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne
interview: Renato De Maria
film profile
]
), an passionate coffee sommelier, and his fiancée, Gaia (Miriam Dalmazio, Wondrous Boccaccio [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
film profile
]
), who are trying to find their way in a country edging ever further into recession, find themselves mixed up in an unsuccessful robbery of a special shipment of coffee. In Belgium, Hamed (Babak Karimi, seen in Nader and Simin, a Separation, Silver Bear for Best Actor in Berlin), who fled the Iraq War to find a better life for himself and his family, discovers the identity of a hooded figure who loots his small pawn shop. And on the other side of the world in a very communist China, Fei (Xiaodong Guo, Blind Massage), a young and successful business owner, finds himself confronted by the terrible choice of stopping the machinery at a factory in the green region of Yunnan because of the risk of contamination to the surrounding area, entirely covered in coffee plantations.

Rounding off the cast is Ennio Fantastichini, and the Chinese actors Xi Qi (Lou Ye’s Mystery, selected at Cannes), Yuqi Zhang (White Deer Plain, selected at Berlin) and Tongsheng Han (a Chinese television star).

Vladan Radovic (who received the David di Donatello Award for Francesco Munzi’s Black Souls [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Francesco Munzi
film profile
]
) is the director of photography, Ilaria Sadun (Laura Bispuri’s Sworn Virgin [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Laura Bispuri
film profile
]
) is the production designer for Italy and Shaoying Peng for China, Eva Coen (Emanuele Crialese’s Grazia's Island [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 and Terraferma [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emanuele Crialese
interview: Emanuele Crialese
film profile
]
) is in charge of the wardrobe, Claudio Di Mauro (Eros, Michelangelo Antonioni’s episode, Gabriele Muccino’s The Last Kiss) is the film editor, and Teho Teadro (Paolo Sorrentino’s Il divo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nicola Giuliano
interview: Paolo Sorrentino
interview: Philippe Desandre
film profile
]
, Daniele Vicari’s Diaz [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daniele Vicari
film profile
]
) is writing the music, while Lilia Trapani (Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York) was responsible for casting.

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(Translated from Italian)

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