The applause at the end of the screening acts as a thermometer: “Kidnapped”, the new film by Mark Bellocchiocheered the Cannes audience at the official screening on Tuesday. A warm welcome for the director from Piacenza who, at over eighty years of age, seems to have entered after the latest recent successes (The traitor, night effect) in a new phase of artistic youth.
The satisfaction with the repercussion of the film in this world premiere that took place on French soil, however, does not make us forget the tragic situation that the populations affected by the floods are experiencing. And so, on the day of its world debut, the film’s producers wanted to announce that their share of the first-day collection of kidnaped in all Italian cinemas will be donated to support the flood emergency.
Rapito opens today in Italian cinemas (with 01 Distribution). In Emilia-Romagna it will be shown in 36 cinemas, about fifteen of which were originally planned in Romagna, but now we also have to deal with closures due to flood damage.
The film focuses on the story of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy who in 1858 was taken from his family of origin to be raised as a Catholic in the custody of Pope Pius IX.
The 25-year-old actor from Ravenna plays Edgardo as a young man leonardo maltese He already co-starred in last year’s the lord of ants by Gianni Amélio. Dressed in a tuxedo, he also attended the premiere in Cannes.
“It was really very exciting – he says -. First Amelio, now Bellocchio. I had two incredible opportunities, I consider myself very very lucky.
If in Amelio Leonardo Maltese’s film he had played the role of the young man who in the 1960s, “kidnapped” for his fascination with the intellectual Aldo Braibanti, was forcibly separated from his relationship with him and also subjected to electroshocks, here portrays an equally complex character, a young man who lived in another environment and in an even more distant time, the 19th century.
“Edgardo Mortara’s story is far from anything I’ve seen or experienced in life,” says the actor from Ravenna. He is a character who brings with him great suffering, inner turmoil, and as an adult he is strongly influenced by what he had to go through as a child.”
A role of great depth, in a film with a cast that includes actors such as Fabrizio Gifuni, Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, as well as the little Enea Sala, from Modena. But the important commitments are not over for Leonardo Maltés.
“I will be Giacomo Leopardi in a television series directed by Sergio Rubini that we will start shooting shortly,” he reveals.
However, these days his thoughts cannot stop going to those who have suffered the floods in the land where he grew up and where his parents live: «My father lives in Cesena and luckily he is well. I have heard from many of my friends and every time I talk about what happened I am moved. I wish I could have been there to help too, but it was nice to see how much solidarity there was. Many of my friends also came to help.’
Valuable support for the film (both financial and operational) from the Emilia-Romagna Film Commission directed by Fabio Abagnato: “This is the first time that we are in competition at Cannes with a film supported by the Film Commission”, he underlines with satisfaction. on his return from the Croisette.
