Luca Zingaretti makes his directorial debut with La casa degli sguardi

by Vittoria Scarpa

21/09/2023 - The first clapperboard has slammed on the popular Italian actor’s first directorial effort, which is based on Daniele Mencarelli’s book of the same name

Luca Zingaretti makes his directorial debut with La casa degli sguardi

Actor-director Luca Zingaretti (© Duccio Giordano)

Luca Zingaretti now features among the many actors who have stepped behind the cameras and transitioned to film direction. Monday 18 September saw the popular lead of the TV series Inspector Montalbano – and a big screen actor for authors such as Marco Tullio Giordana (Sanguepazzo [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), Mario Martone (We Believed [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mario Martone
interview: Mario Martone
film profile]), the Taviani brothers (Two Kidnappings), Daniele Luchetti (My Brother is an Only Child [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daniele Luchetti
interview: Riccardo Tozzi
film profile], Our Life [+see also:
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making of
film profile]) and countless others – slam the first clapperboard on his directorial debut, entitled La casa degli sguardi.

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Based on Daniele Mencarelli’s book of the same name (published by Mondadori in 2018 and subsequently winning the Volponi Prize, the Severino Cesari First Work Award and the John Fante First Work Award), Zingaretti’s filmmaking debut is produced by Angelo Barbagallo on behalf of BIBI Film, and Gabriella Buontempo and Massimo Martino for Clemart together with RAI Cinema and Stand By Me. For the record, Mencarelli is also the author of Everything Calls for Salvation (awarded the Young Strega Prize in 2020), on which the series of the same name, directed by Francesco Bruni for Netflix, is also based.

The screenplay for La casa degli sguardi was penned by the director in league with Gloria Malatesta (Children of the Night [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Andrea De Sica
film profile]) and Stefano Rulli (of Suburra [+see also:
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interview: Stefano Sollima
film profile], Dormant Beauty [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Marco Bellocchio
film profile], Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], to name but a few). It tells the story of 20-year-old Marco who has a great capacity for feeling, perceiving and empathising with the world’s pain. Marco writes poetry and uses drugs and alcohol to seek “oblivion”, a state of impenetrable unconsciousness, to protect him from the angst of existing and living. He drinks a lot; too much. He wants to escape his pain but, first and foremost, he’s looking to get away from himself. He has to anaesthetise himself in order to live, he says. He’s unable to be present unless his blood alcohol level is sky high, and he has ostracised himself from everyone around him - his friends and his partner - who are frightened by his desire to self-destruct. Even his father, a witness to his slow suicide, is incapable of managing so much suffering, but at least he tries to be there. His mother, meanwhile, has been missing for some years, leaving a gaping hole in his life. When he has to start a job in the Bambin Gesù cleaning cooperative, Marco is convinced that this experience, working in direct contact with sick children, will end up killing him.