08/01/2019 - Shooting on the first fiction feature by the Italian director is due to kick off on 14 January. The film stars Elio Germano, Michela Cescon and Elena Cotta

Marco Bonfanti makes his debut in fiction cinema with The Man Without Gravity [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] which is due to start filming on Monday, 14 January. The 38-year-old director from Milan, known for award-winning documentaries such as The Last Shepherd [+see also:
trailer
interview: Marco Bonfanti
film profile] (screened at more than 100 international film festivals) and Bozzetto non troppo [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (selected at the 73^rd Venice Film Festival), has cast Elio Germano (winner of three David di Donatello Awards and the Best Actor Award at Cannes for Our Life [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile]), Michela Cescon (winner of David di Donatello and Nastro d’Argento Awards for Best Actress for Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) and Elena Cotta (winner of the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for A Street in Palermo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emma Dante
film profile]) in his tragicomic feature. The film also stars Silvia D'Amico (Don't Be Bad [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], also recently seen in The Guest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Duccio Chiarini
film profile]) and the Belgian-Italian actor-musician Vincent Scarito.

Written by Bonfanti with Giulio Carrieri (among the creators of the satirical TV series Romolo+Giuly), The Man Without Gravity starts on a stormy night at a hospital in a small town, where a child is born with an unimaginable power: he can resist gravity. The newborn baby floats in the air, hovering in the room, as light as a feather, watched by his incredulous mother. The mother and grandmother soon flee with the newborn and decide to keep him hidden from the world for many, many years. Until one day, the world finds out about the man without gravity...

"The Man Without Gravity is the story of a man who seeks normality in a world where normality seems to be a defect," says Marco Bonfanti. "When attempting to find a definition for the word 'normality', I asked myself what the very few objective certainties of man are. And the first thing that came to my mind was the law of gravity: incontrovertible and irrefutable."

"So that was the starting point for the film," continues the director. "I imagined a character born without gravity, someone able to resist this scientific certainty and saw a little baby coming out of the womb, floating in the air, still attached to his umbilical cord like a balloon on a child's wrist."

The Man Without Gravity was produced by Isabella Spinelli and Anna Godano for Isaria Productions and Zagora Film with RAI Cinema and co-produced by Climax Films (Belgium), Mact Productions (France). The film received funding from MIBAC General Directorate of Cinema and support from IDM Südtirol - South Tyrol Film Fund & Commission (BLS) and will be shot in South Tyrol, Milan, Belgium and finally in Rome at Cinecittà Studios.

(Translated from Italian)