e NERO - Intramovies

RAI CINEMA and CATTLEYA
present
a production Cattleya and Rai Cinema
e NERO
black and
a film by
Cristina Comencini
with
Fabio Volo
Ambra Angiolini
Aïssa Maïga
Eriq Ebouaney
Release: January 11th, 2008
Lenght: 100’
World Sales:
Intramovies Srl
Via E. Manfredi 15 – 00197 Rome, Italy
Ph + 39068077252, Fax + 3906 8076156
Email: [email protected]
www.intramovies.com
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e NERO
TECNICAL CREDITS
Director
CRISTINA COMENCINI
Screenplay
CRISTINA COMENCINI
GIULIA CALENDA
MADDALENA RAVAGLI
Art Director
PAOLA COMENCINI
Costume Design
ANTONELLA BERARDI
Cinematography
FABIO CIANCHETTI
Sound
BRUNO PUPPARO
Editing
CECILIA ZANUSO
Production Manager
BEPPE SERRA
Line Production Manager
SANDRA BONACCHI
Executive Producer Cattleya
MATTEO DE LAURENTIIS
Exectuive Producer
GINA GARDINI
A production
CATTLEYA
Produced by
RICCARDO TOZZI,
GIOVANNI STABILINI
MARCO CHIMENZ
Co produced by
RAI CINEMA
A distribution
DISTRIBUTION
01
Sound track
2
- credits not contractual -
e NERO
CAST
CARLO
FABIO VOLO
ELENA
AMBRA ANGIOLINI
NADINE
AÏSSA MAÏGA
BERTRAND
ERIQ EBOUANEY
ADUA
ANNA BONAIUTO
ALFONSO
FRANCO BRANCIAROLI
OLGA
KATIA RICCIARELLI
ESMERALDA
MARIA TERESA SAPONANGELO
VERONIQUE
AWA LY
AHAMDOU
BILLO
DANTE
BOB MESSINI
- credits not contractual 3
e NERO
Synopsis
Racial integration is Elena’s profession and passion, not only filling her working days as a
cultural mediator assisting immigrants, but spilling over into her home life as well. All too
often her daughter and her husband Carlo, must attend evening charity events where they
feel distinctly out of place. During one of these evenings, Carlo meets Nadine, a beautiful
black woman....
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DIRECTOR’S NOTES
As soon as I returned from the business trip to Africa where I shot the documentary Our Rwanda, I
went to interview Jean Leonard Touadi, historian and journalist. Jean Leonard is married to an
Italian woman and they have three children. While I was interviewing him about Rwanda, I saw his
wife and children walking down the hall, the photo of their wedding was on a chest of drawers, the
house had nothing ethnic, or how we would imagine it to be. They laughed as they told me of the
commonplaces Italians have about mixed couples. The same thing happened to me at the dinner
given by my friend Jeanne, Rwandan and also in the travel group. Jeanne is married to an Italian
and they have two children. Over dinner, we chatted about children, schools, marriages. I thought it
was the first time I had black friends and that it would be nice to tell about them in a love story,
outside humanitarian pietism, outside the idea of our silent superiority, of their dependence. The
relationship with my two new friends was much more interesting, mysterious, ambiguous and
warmer than my abstract ideas about them.
This is how Black and White came about, a story of love between a rather normal young Italian
man with no great ideas about Africa and a young Senegalese woman who has lived in Italy for
ten years. It is a passion of love that makes other people suffer, because the couple is married,
and it shakes the families, both Senegalese and Italian, bringing out many prejudiced ideas
about the differences. At the basis of the film is the question I put on the lips of the character
played by Fabio Volo: «Why don’t we have any black friends?». Volo asks his wife, Ambra
Angiolini, this question after having secretly read the diary of the African woman he is falling in
love with. The same question is in Nadine’s diary: «Why don’t we have any white friends?». The
idea of the story I wrote with Giulia Calenda and Maddalena Ravagli started from these two
crossed questions: to touch each other, enter in deep, fascinating, difficult contact. I believe that
the lack of love and awareness, not getting involved, living close and far in the cities where we
never encounter each other, is one of the most worrying aspects of racism of today.
Relationships and mixed marriages, which are the great new occasions of humankind, are
frightening. Even in such a mixed country as America, we have never seen on the screen a
black woman (truly black and not faded) making love with a white man.
Black and White is a comedy as well as a passionate love story. The two distant worlds – Italian
and Senegalese – defend themselves from their passion, they think they are attracted by the
novelty. They reckon that that it can’t work and they don’t notice – even the two people in love
at times can’t manage to see it – that they are just a man and a woman in love. The comedy lets
us talk about things that are contradictory, fleeting and removed, without immediately pointing
out the good and the bad. Thus Ambra Angiolini’s parents in the film, played by two magnificent
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actors - Anna Bonaiuto and Franco Branciaroli - or Volo’s mother, an irresistible Katia
Ricciarelli, are the Italians who want to be good but actually think things they don’t dare say.
The comedy lets them release these feelings without splitting the world in two, it actually makes
us feel that each one of us could fall in love with someone completely different from us and, put
in another setting, be afraid of it.
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Cristina Comencini (Director and screenplayer)
Bibliography
1991
1994
1997
2002
2004
2007
PAGINE STRAPPATE
PASSIONE DI FAMIGLIA
IL CAPPOTTO DEL TURCO
MATRIOSKA
LA BESTIA NEL CUORE
L’ILLUSIONE DEL BENE
Filmography
1982 IL MATRIMONIO DI CATERINA directed by Luigi Comencini
(co-writer with Luigi Comencini)
1984 CUORE directed by Luigi Comencini
(co-writer with Suso Cecchi D’Amico)
1986 LA STORIA directed by Luigi Comencini
(co-writer with Luigi Comencini and Suso Cecchi D’Amico)
1986 QUATTRO STORIE DI DONNE directed by Franco Giraldi
(co-writer with Ennio De Concini)
1988 ZOO directed by Cristina Comencini
1989 BUON NATALE E BUON ANNO directed by Luigi Comencini (screenplayer)
1990 I DIVERTIMENTI DELLA VITA PRIVATA directed by Cristina Comencini
1992 LA FINE È NOTA directed by Cristina Comencini
1995 VA’ DOVE TI PORTA IL CUORE directed by Cristina Comencini
1998 MATRIMONI directed by Cristina Comencini
1999 LIBERATE I PESCI directed by Cristina Comencini
2002 IL PIÙ BEL GIORNO DELLA MIA VITA directed by Cristina Comencini
2005 LA BESTIA NEL CUORE directed by Cristina Comencini
(screenplay with Francesca Marciano and Giulia Calenda)
2007 IL NOSTRO RWANDA -Viaggio a Kigali degli studenti romani, documentary
directed by Cristina Comencini and Carlotta Cerquetti
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Fabio Volo (Carlo)
Cinema
2002 CASOMAI directed by Alessandro D’Alatri
PLAYGIRL (short) directed by Fabio Tagliavia
2003 OPOPOMOZ directed by Enzo D'Alò ( voice of Farfaricchio)
2005 LA FEBBRE directed by Alessandro D’Alatri
2007 MANUALE D'AMORE 2 – directed by Giovanni Veronesi
UNO SU DUE directed by Eugenio Cappuccio
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Ambra Angiolini (Elena)
Fiction:
1994 FAVOLA directed by Fabrizio De Angelis
1999 MARIA MADDALENA - (Mediaset)
2001 UNA DONNA PER AMICO 3 - (Rai Uno)
2002 GIANBURRASCA - (Musical)
Cinema
2007 SATURNO CONTRO directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
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Aïssa Maiga (Nadine)
Cinema
1996 SARAKA –BO
1997 LA REVANCHE DE LUCY
1999 JONAS ET LILA A DEMAIN
CODE INCONNU
LE PROF
MARIE-LINE
2000 VOYAGE A OUAGA
LISE ET ANDRE
2002 LES BAIGNEUSES
MES ENFANTS NE SONT PAS (…)
RIEN QUE DU BONHEUR
2003 NO WAY
2004 CACHE
L’UN RESTE L’AUTRE PART
LES POUPÉES RUSSES
SOMETIMES IN APRIL
2005 JE VAIS BIEN, NE T’EN FAIS PAS
PARIS JE T’AIME
PRÊTE MOI TA MAIN
2006 BAMAKO
L’AGE D’HOMME
2007 LA MAIN COURANTE
Denis AMAR
Henry J. MROZOWSKI
Alain TANNER
Michael HANEKE
Alexandre JARDIN
Mehdi CHAREF
Camille MOUYEKE
Denis DERCOURT
Vivianne CANDAS
Denis DERCOURT
Denis PARENT
Owell Albert BROWN
Michael HANEKE
Claude BERRI
Cédric KLAPISCH
Raoul PECK
Philippe LIORET
Oliver SCHMITZ
Eric LARTIGAUT
Abderrahmane SISSAKO
Raphaêl FEJTO
Claude Michel ROME
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Eriq Ebouaney (Bertrand)
Cinema
2000 UNE FAMILLE TRES ORDINAIRE directed by Julius Amédée Laou
FEMME FATALE directed by Brian De Palma
LES ROIS MAGES directed by Didier Bourdon and Bernard Campan
MA FEMME EST UNE ACTRICE directed by Y. Attal
2002 LE SILENCE DANS LA FORET directed by Bassek Ba Kobhio
2003 RP2 – LES ANGES DE L’APOCALYPSE directed by Olivier Dahan
CAPE OF GOOD HOPE directed by Mark Bamford
CAUSE TOUJOURS directed by Jeanne Labrune
SAN ANTONIO directed by Frédéric Auburtin
2004 SOMETIMES IN APRIL directed by Raoul Peck
LE CROCIATE directed by Ridley Scott
2005 PARIS-DAKAR directed by Caroline Jules
THE FRONT LINE directed by David Glesson
THE TRAIL directed by Eric Valli
2006 THE NATIVITY STORY directed by Catherine Hardwicke
AFRICA PARADIS directed by Sylvestre AMOUSSOU
2007 MAGIC PARIS directed by Alice Winocour
2008 DISGRACE directed by Steve Jacobs
CASH directed by Eric Besnard
HITMAN directed by Xavier Gens
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