email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

ROMEFILMFEST Competition

The Stone Council: Bellucci at the edges of reality

by 

Monica Bellucci, the most international of today’s Italian movie stars, presented her second competition film at the RomeFilmFest .

After her all-Italian comic turn in Paolo Virzì’s N.: Napoleon & Me), she transformed herself – with short hair and modest tones, her features drawn and her expression pained – into an adoptive mother searching for her kidnapped son in the European co-production The Stone Council [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by French director Guillaume Nicloux, who specifically asked the actress to tone down her Mediterranean beauty for the role.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Although the film is based on the eponymous novel by Jean-Christophe Grangé (author of The Crimson Rivers), many liberties were taken for the screen adaptation. "From the beginning,” said Nicloux, who was at the festival with Bellucci for the film’s premiere, “my idea was not to make a true action film but, rather, an intimate thriller. In the book, for example, Monica’s character was a martial arts expert. We, however, were interested in a normal character, less glamorous and more fragile, who did extraordinary things ".

And extraordinary things certainly abound: Laura (Monica Bellucci) has been having hallucinations for weeks, which cause her uncontrollable anguish. Who is her adopted son truly? Where does he come from? What the strange sign that appears on his chest mean?

A few days before his seventh birthday, the boy is kidnapped. Intent on finding him, Laura travels to the edge of reality, which leads her on a journey to Mongolia, where a people heading towards extinction see in the boy the sacrificial victim through which to gain immortality.

Halfway between thriller and spy movie, with a strong dose of mystical and supernatural elements, The Stone Council is a genre film, albeit a unique one. Said the director: "I started from a genre story that blends fantastical elements with suspense, in which I could add action, adventure, emotions and fear ".

Also starring Catherine Deneuve, in the role of an evil, unscrupulous woman, The Stone Council was produced by France’s Yves Marmion for UGC YM, in co-production with Integral Film (Germany), RAI Cinema (Italy) and TF1 Films Production (France), with the cooperation of Canal + and Cine Cinema, and support from, among others, the CNC.

The film will be released by 01 Distribution in Italy, one of the many countries to which it was sold by UGC International. After the excellent deals already struck at Cannes, negotiations for further territories continue at Rome, to be followed by the American Film Market in Los Angeles.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

(Translated from Italian)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy