Starring Deva Cassel, Laura Luchetti’s “The Beautiful Summer” (“La Bella Estate”) has bowed sales and a trailer, ahead of its world premiere at this week’s Locarno Festival.
In a first deal to go down for sales agent True Colours, Palace Films has swooped on distribution rights to Australia and New Zealand. Xenix Filmdistribution will release in Switzerland “The Beautiful Summer,” which is loosely based on Cesare Pavese’s novel.
“His vision is so contemporary. He speaks about adolescence, the time in your life when everything is possible. It’s a story of a simple girl trying to make it in the big city, forced into becoming a woman. It’s a story of every girl,” Luchetti toldPvNew.
In the film, set in Turin in 1938, hard-working Ginia (Yile Yara Vianello) is looking for an adventure. She finds Amelia (Deva Cassel), who models for painters and introduces her to a whole different world.
“Ginia had to represent nature, while Amelia had to be someone people can’t help but look at. Deva was the best person. As a model herself, she knows what it means to put on that kind of façade,” explains Luchetti.
Cassel is the daughter of Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel.
“Given her name, everyone expects her to be Meryl Streep. She is just 18 years old and it’s her first film, but she was learning so quickly. These kids, they formed a gang. They were coming on set even when they weren’t shooting and they were helping each other.”
Sold by True Colours and debuting its first trailer, “The Beautiful Summer” was produced by Italy’s Kino Produzioni,9.99 Films andRai Cinema in collaboration withLucky Red, True Colours, Tapelessfilm.
“It’s so universal in its simplicity. And so timely, also for kids these days. That’s what they talk about: their bodies, their sexuality. Their body is the only political weapon they have left,” noted Luchetti.
“I recently read an article about two girls kissing in a park outside of Rome. They were brutally beaten. I thought to myself: ‘Has the situation really changed?’ Ginia had to fight back then and she would have to fight now.”
Luchetti doesn’t see her film as a love story, she said. It’s aboutfallingin love.
“The love story begins at the end,” she laughs, also opening up about the way she wanted to portray young women.
“Ginia wants to be painted, she wants to be seen, and she meets someone who makes a living this way. But I want to be at the eye level of my characters. I want to hug them, not look at them, because a hug is never voyeuristic.”
“In the book, Amelia is always naked. In my film, she is always dressed.”
Luchetti, who used to successfully dabble in animation – “filmmaking is my husband, animation is my lover. I still have my first puppet in the fridge!” – also earned her stripes on the set of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” or as an assistant to Russell Crowe on “Proof of Life.”
“I had a chip on my shoulder because I didn’t go to film school, so I started from scratch,” she said.
“I shot a documentary about Antony Minghella [‘Climbing ‘Cold Mountain’] –thatwas my film school. I worked with Russell Crowe – that’s how I learnt about acting. I know that some people want bigger budgets, but my aim is to get better at telling stories.”
Soon, she will reunite with Cassel on Netflix’s limited series “The Leopard,” with Luchetti directing one episode.
“It’s a beautiful project based on the book, not on the [Visconti’s] film, which is a masterpiece and should stay where it is. It was a challenge, because I am used to working with nothing. It was like being thrown into a huge candy store,” she admitted.
The show, created by Richard Warlow, will be co-directed by Tom Shankland and Giuseppe Capotondi.
“I am in the middle of the shoot and it’s almost the opposite of ‘The Beautiful Summer’: Instead of outlining an era, we are bringing the 1860s back to life, trying to be as faithful as possible. There are so many people around me. I have to pretend I am used to that!”
“Working with Laura is always a pleasure. It’s a lot of pressure to have a role in such an iconic piece [as ‘The Leopard’] but we are all working very hard and cannot wait to show everyone the result,” added Cassel.
She saw her character in “The Beautiful Summer” as a young woman way ahead of her time.
“The best way I could describe her is as a dim light that burns your eyes, or a street cat. She presents herself as this strong, confident person, but she still needs to heal her own wounds. I learnt a lot about myself through her,” she says.
“I need to explore more roles to understand what kind of characters I want to focus on, but the advice my parents gave me that I actually use the most is to have fun. It might seem quite banal, but once you get into the flow of the set, even having to wake up at 4 a.m. and working for hours and hours becomes the most beautiful thing.”
