The Strangeness | La Stranezza
Director | Roberto Ando
Presented by DELUXE | THE VAULT
Sicilian duo, Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone are comic legends in Italy: here they join forces with the majestic Toni Servillo.
This beautifully crafted period piece takes the legendary playwright Luigi Pirandello’s (Servillo) trip to Sicily as its inspiration. It imagines the improbable meeting between the playwright and a couple of Sicilian gravediggers who happen to do amateur theatre in their spare time.
2023 | 103 min | Comedy | Italy | Italian with English subtitles
CAST Toni Servillo, Salvatore Ficarra, Valentino Picone, Renato Carpentieri
It is 1921 and future Literature Nobel Prize Winner Luigi Pirandello (Toni Servillo, The King of Laughter IFF22, The Great Beauty IFF14)) returns to his beloved Sicily for the 80th birthday of his mentor, famous novelist and playwright Giovanni Verga.
Upon his arrival in Agrigento, unexpected news catapults him into a universe populated by incredible personalities, ghostly visions, distant memories and melancholy apparitions. Here he encounters a pair of gravediggers/aspiring actors, Onofrio and Sebastiano (comedy duo Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone, Once Upon a Time...in Bethlehem IFF20) who deliver hilarious, amateur stage productions. On this compelling journey Pirandello is stirred out of a creative block and confronts his nostalgia, propelling him toward the creation of his masterpiece, “Six Characters in Search of an Author” a work which will mark a worldwide revolution in twentieth-century theatre.
This is a film well worth watching for the mix of comic tensions that Picone and Ficarra excel at and for the delightfully poker-faced responses that are a Servillo speciality … And it’s a fun story.
John P Harvey. BMA Magazine
Hollywood Reporter
WINNER
Film of the Year - Nastri d’Argento Awards 2023
WINNER
Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Producer - David di Donatello Awards 2023