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CLASH OF CIVILIZATION OVER AN ELEVATOR IN PIAZZA VITTORIO

SCONTRO DI CIVILTA' PER UN ASCENSORE A PIAZZA VITTORIO

By Isotta TOSO

INTRAMOVIES - as SALES All rights, World

Comedy - Completed 2009

Roman born locals, mix with immigrants, transplants and political
refugees.
The violent death of young Lorenzo sparks up a portrait
sometimes funny, otherwise sad but always incisive of a mixed
community.
From the book by Amara Lakhous, with the same name.

- Year of production
- 2009
- Genres
- Comedy, Drama, Black comedy
- Countries
- ITALY
- Languages
- ITALIAN
- Duration
- 96 mn
- Director(s)
- Isotta TOSO
- Writer(s)
- Isotta TOSO, Maura VESPINI, Andrea COTTI
- Cast
- Kasia SMUTNIAK, Daniele LIOTTI, Serra YILMAZ, Milena VUKOTIC, Francesco PANNOFINO, Roberto CITRAN, Marco ROSSETTI, Ahmed HAFIENE
- ISAN
- 0000-0002-BD96-0000-F-0000-0000-T
- Producer(s)
- Sandro SILVESTRI (EMME), Maura VESPINI (EMME)
- Synopsis
- A small culturally mixed community in the centre of Rome, Piazza Vittorio (Quartiere Esquilino). In a modern-day Roman apartment building where immigrants, transplants, and multi-generational locals are represented by linguistic, cultural, ethnic and religious differences, a series of happenings end to arise a clash of civilizations that pave the way to misunderstandings, prejudices and suffered lives. Each character takes his or her turn centre-stage by recounting his or her story made up of personal dramas of racial identity, daily humiliations, fears and indifference, from Marco who is a would-be lawyer but he works as an insurance agent with low-profile vocational ambitions, to Giulia who is a creative photographer in search for her inspiration, to Nurit who is forced to live in her hated condition of political refugee, to Amedeo who hides his really identity for his needs, etc. All these characters follow their own paths, crossing their lives because of a limited space where they have to share their existence: the building and the elevator that becomes a pretext to voice a series of endless clashes between them. That’s the context where the fighting lives of this multicultural combination of immigrants offer to the viewer their own personal fears, such as the lonely woman who is obsessed with her missing dog, those who renounce to their own dreams, those who are prickly racists, those who are overwhelmed by the red tape, those who are victims of bureaucracy, etc. After a murder in the building elevator, there will be a fully-fledged break of each character’s balance. An investigation ensues and one by one, the neighbours offer their querulous, seemingly tangential testimony. Each character takes his turn recounting his story, the dramas of emigration, the fears and misunderstandings of a life spent on society's margins, the mainstream culture's indifference and offer a colourful mosaic of riotously funny, achingly sad and strikingly incisive portraits of immigration. Their outraged, disillusioned, defensive, afraid and their frequently wild testimony reveals an intriguing psychological and social insight expressing the power of fear, racial prejudice and cultural misunderstandings, but at the end the police inspector will find out the unique truth and the real killer, the eye-witness of the murder that cannot speak: the elevator.
- Beginning of shooting
- Jul 01, 2009