Raoul Bova debuts as producer
In a move that’s all Hollywood, which he’s been a part of for some time now, the “face” of Italian cinema Raoul Bova gets roughed up around the edges to mark a turning point in his career. The 35 year-old actor is returning to the big screen in the role of a simple, naïve Sicilian fisherman in Io, l'altro (lit. “Me, the Other”), the debut feature by Tunisian director Mohsen Melliti, to be released in Italy on 50 screens on May 18 by Twentieth Century Fox.
The film, which also marks Bova’s producing debut with Sanmarco Film, is the story of two friends, Giuseppe (Bova) and the Tunisian Yousef (Giovanni Martorana), who have worked together for over 10 years on a fishing boat. They hear news of the Madrid bombings via radio while at sea: one of the wanted men has Yousef’s same name. In the beginning, Giuseppe jokes about this but soon suspicion creeps in and leads to a dramatic and violent confrontation between the two men.
Conceived as a Greek tragedy – with a restricted time span (24 hours), setting (the entire film is set on the fishing boat, near the Sicilian Channel) and action (the conflict between civilizations) – Io, l'altro wants to denounce a raw nerve in contemporary society: prejudice against Muslims.
"Even I found myself being prejudiced after September 11," said Bova at the film’s press screening, "which I am ashamed of. This film is against the culture of suspicion". Added Melliti, in a politically anti-American vein: "A manipulated suspicion, an orchestrated fear".
For Bova, producing this film was a professional step forward: "I did what Americans do normally, participate in the production of a film they believe in", he said. "You can’t just sit around waiting for scripts, you have to go out and search for them. If the projects are valid, it’s only right that the actor invest something".
He also announced that he was developing a film on Derek Rocco Bernabei, the Italian American executed in the US in 2000, whose guilt was never proven. "A great Italian filmmaker will direct it,” he said briefly.
(Translated from Italian)
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