The first trailer for Giulio Donato's “Labyrinths,” which is screening in the out-of-competition section of the Venice Film Festival, an independent side festival to the Venice Film Festival, has been screened (below). Open Reel is responsible for international sales.
The film revolves around Francesco, an introverted young man born in a village surrounded by nature in the mountains of Calabria. He grew up with Memo, his best friend, with whom he shared everything until his teenage years. One day, he finds a book, which becomes a magical object that will change the course of his life.
Francesco has a dream and he will find the courage to pursue it against everything and everyone: not only the society around him, which makes him feel trapped in a maze of unwritten psychological and social rules, but also against Memo.
In a statement, the director said: “For Labyrinths, my goal was to start from reality and create something new through photography. I decided to place the story halfway between reality and fiction, and to maintain this approach in all aspects of the film. For this reason, I chose to work on a double register: on the one hand, a very realistic direction, aimed at making the audience almost forget that they are in front of a film, preserving the natural uncertainty of reality; and on the other, a more designed and aesthetic system, in the representation of Francesco’s dreams.
“So, I tried not to change the sets, shoot a lot with handheld cameras, and direct the actors by combining their experiences with those of their characters, creating scenes and dialogues together; and in parallel, for the dream moments, I chose to use more stable subjective shots, and an immersive soundtrack coupled with the protagonist’s voice. I wanted to make these two tracks coexist, giving the film unity and narrative coherence, but creating a clear stylistic distance. The intention was to amplify the difference between the two worlds and visions of reality.”
The cast includes Francesco Grillo, Simone Iorgi, Stella Mastrantonio, Finn Runsdorf, Davide Fasano, Antonio Gherardi, and Massimo De Santis.
The producer is Francesco Cimpanelli of Life Cinema, and the executive producer is Giulio Donato.
