16/11/2012 - Francesco Amato's Cosimo e Nicole tells the love story between two young vagabonds who meet during the Genoa G8

The Genoa G8 only takes up a few minutes at the beginning of the film. There are many other elements to Cosimo e Nicole [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Francesco Amato’s second film, competing in the Perspectives Italy section of the seventh International Rome Film Festival. Love, music, clandestine immigration and sudden deaths. But also a sense of guilt, difficult choices and the pain of separation. All these themes mean that there is a point in the film where you wonder what the film is really trying to say. That questions slowly disappears though, as scenes run after one another, with their multiple facets – just like life.

At the centre of it all is a passionate love story between Cosimo and Nicole (Riccardo Scamarcio and French actress Clara Ponsot). They meet in the middle of the Genoa G8 protest confusion and fall in love at first sight. He is Italian, she is French. They share a passion for freedom and music. They travel together and then decide to return to Genoa. They start working for a friend who organizes concerts (an extraordinary Paolo Sassanelli), who seems progressive but will be revealed a monster. During the construction of a stage, an African immigrant falls from the scaffolding. The incident will shake the two lovers’ balance to its core.

"The starting point was Genoa,” explained Amato, "we wanted to give the G8 a different interpretation: not just violence, but also a vast mixture of different souls. We interviewed so many young people who fell in love during that time. There was a lot of vitality and energy during those days in Genoa.”

The film also touches upon the theme of accidents on the workplace, in particular during the building of concert stages. A topic which couldn’t be more timely with the recent collapse of stages for concerts by Radiohead, Laura Pausini and Jovanotti. "When we thought about this story, those accidents hadn’t even happened yet,” the screenwriters said. “We had read a newspaper article about a Moroccan worker who had fallen from a rooftop in Bergamo, abandoned by the roadside by his employer."

The social themes mix with sentimental ones and scenes of intense lovemaking are replaced by concerts (on stage, Italian indie stars like Marlene Kuntz, Afterhours and Verdena). The sense of guilt becomes relentless. Cosimo and Nicole become similar to Bonnie and Clyde, passionate with no limits, mindless, reckless.

Produced by Cattleya and Fastfilm with RaiCinema, and with support from the Turin Piedmont Film Commission, Cosimo e Nicole will be coming out in Italian theatres on November 29 and is being distributed by Bolero Film.

(Translated from Italian)