Paris-based sales and production company Totem has boarded “Quasi a Casa,” directed by Carolina Pavone.
The film is produced by Palme d’Or winner Nanni Moretti for Sacher Film and Marta Donzelli and Gregorio Paonessa for Vivo Film. Fandango – behind festival favorites “Orlando, My Political Biography” and “The Survival of Kindness” – will handle Italian distribution.
Described as a “pop drama,” it follows Caterina. Now in her 20s, she wants to be a musician, but she’s paralyzed by fear and insecurity. One summer, she meets her idol, the French singer Mia and gets to know her. It’s the beginning of a complex relationship that will accompany Caterina over the years and finally allow her to find home. Almost.
The logline states: “There comes a time in everyone’s life, when we need to start figuring out what our place in the world is.”
Newcomer Maria Chiara Arrighini plays Caterina. Singer and actor Lou Doillon, known for her collabs with Abel Ferrara and Maïwenn, is Mia.
Born in 1994, Pavone attended Italy’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Later, she worked as an assistant director on Moretti’s “Mia madre,” “Three Floors” and “A Brighter Tomorrow,” and with Leonardo Guerra Seragnoli on “Likemeback” and “The Time of Indifference,” based on the novel by Alberto Moravia.
“Quasi a Casa,” currently eyeing a premiere at a fall festival, will mark her feature debut.
Totem’s recent titles include Cannes premiere “The Village Next to Paradise” by Mo Harawe, “Crossing” by Levan Akin, and Juho Kuosmanen’s “The Silent Trilogy,” set to be presented at Karlovy Vary later this week. It consists of shorts “Romu-Mattila and a Beautiful Woman” (2012), “The Moonshiners” (2017) and “A Planet Far Away” (2023).
