Also out this week, Ago Panini’s, Waiting for the Sun, aka Aspettando il sole. This looks kind of interesting… and it has a great cast headed by Raoul Bava & Gabriel Garko. Panini made his name as a commercials director, and it’s his debut. Here’s the review from Cineuropa…
In this rather Hollywood-starved edition of the Rome International Film Festival, mostly Italian stars have walked down the red carpet. Monica Bellucci (The Man Who Loves [trailer]) and Christian De Sica (Parlami di Me) were followed today by the cast of the the feature debut by commercials director Ago Panini, Waiting for the Sun, a Special Event at the festival.
The film has 15 main characters, whose actors are scrupulously listed in alphabetical order. There are all guests for a night at the Hotel Bellevue, a decrepit place on the outskirts of anwhere, Italy in 1982. There is the concierge (Giuseppe Cederna, winner of Best Actor at Annecy); a porn filmmaker; a thief hiding out after a robbery; those who suffer and contemplate revenge for love; failed erotic encounters; and plenty of secrets. And so forth, in a mosaic of stories that (hardly) ever intersect.
The over-the-top, pulp tones belong to noir comedy yet the film struggles to find its rhythm, and not all the stories leave their mark. Of mostly top-name cast (including Raoul Bova, the only one who will not be present on the red carpet tonight), the strongest are the infallible Bebo Storti, a disillusioned porn director who speaks of love and cinema, and the surprising Gabriel Garko, who for once breaks from the routine of a television sex symbol to play a tenderly maladjusted criminal.
Produced by laCasa in collaboration with Mikado Film, Waiting for the Sun was made for €7000,000. Panini’s upcoming project is a film on Death Row victim Derek Rocco Barnabei. The film is in the preparation phase and will be entitled Just’us.