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PRODUCTION Italy

The first clapperboard slams in Rome for Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini's Il contagio

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- Vincenzo Salemme plays an unusual dramatic role alongside Vinicio Marchioni and Anna Foglietta in this adaptation of a Walter Siti novel, which is being staged by Kimerafilm, of Don’t Be Bad fame

The first clapperboard slams in Rome for Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini's Il contagio
Directors Daniele Coluccini and Matteo Botrugno with actor Maurizio Tesei on the set of Il contagio

Over the next few weeks, Rome will play host to the shoot for The Contagion [+see also:
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, the second feature by Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini, based on the novel of the same name by author Walter Siti, winner of the Strega Prize in 2013 with his novel Resistere non serve a niente. This will be the first big-screen adaptation of a Walter Siti work. The movie marks a return to filming for the two young Roman directors, whose feature debut, Et in terra pax, was presented in the Venice Days at the 2010 Venice Film Festival. That movie garnered worldwide acclaim from audiences and critics alike, as demonstrated by its participation in over 70 international festivals and the plethora of awards it picked up, including a Mention at the 2011 Nastri d’Argento Awards for being “a brave and different work”. The story and screenplay of the new film were penned by the directors themselves, together with Nuccio Siano, who, besides being one of the cast, also previously directed the stage play of the same name.

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The Contagion is being produced by Kimerafilm – which is going back to the grindstone on the heels of the incredible success of Claudio Caligari’s Don’t Be Bad [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
– with Rai Cinema, in conjunction with Gekon Productions and JPII Holding Ltd. The movie has been recognised as being of national cultural interest and is benefiting from contributions from the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities – Directorate General for Cinema.

The Contagion is an ensemble film in which the everyday lives of ordinary people intertwine with those of criminals and unscrupulous profiteers. In a block of flats on the outskirts of Rome, the lives of Marcello and Chiara, Mauro and Simona, Valeria and Attilio, Flaminia and Bruno, and local crime boss Carmine play out. The storyline blends love and the sex trade, crime and hope, and tragedy and comedy, thus creating a multi-coloured mosaic in which the suburbs themselves become some kind of monstrous giant beached on the outskirts of a huge city. But in the film, we will also see Rome and its majestic and unforgiving historic centre, where a social cooperative is based. This cooperative makes money by misappropriating public funds destined for shelters for asylum seekers and children’s homes for orphans – actions that bring to mind the Mafia Capitale case, a scandal that later came to the attention of the newspapers. Despite seeming incompatible at first glance, these two worlds – that of the working-class suburbs and that of central Rome – are nothing more than two sides of the same coin.

There is a whole host of actors involved in the production, such as Vincenzo Salemme in the unusual dramatic role of Professor Walter and Vinicio Marchioni as Marcello, his young, gym-obsessed lover. Walter hangs around in the suburbs to come up with useful ideas for his new novel, but these new acquaintances will end up “infecting” his principles of lawfulness and his middle-class values. These two actors are joined by performers such as Anna Foglietta, Giulia Bevilacqua, Maurizio Tesei, Carmen Giardina and Lucianna De Falco, who will breathe life into the other main characters in this patchwork of stories.

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(Translated from Italian)

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