Italy's 1991 Oscar winner with
Mediterraneo Gabriele Salvatores tells the tale of a pair of
Neapolitan street urchins or scugnizzi, a boy and a girl, who
try their luck in America in his latest film, from a 1950s
script by Federico Fellini, titled Napoli-New York.
The avowedly 'neo-realist' movie, hitting screens November 21,
had its press premiere in Rome Wednesday.
It starts off in a Naples still destroyed by the war and moves
to a totally fantastic New York in full-on Fellini dream style,
but "where the two kids discover, together with the wonder, that
Italians are the object of a racism equal to that towards
blacks," said the 74-year-old Naples native.
Asked if it was a film about solidarity that resonates today,
the director replied: "I'll answer with a Neapolitan saying:
when you fall down the stairs you think 'we're rolling, but
we're coming to the landing'. Today it's a bit like that, we're
rolling (precipitously) waiting for the landing. Yes, it's true,
this is a landing film".
The two extraordinary little protagonists are Carmine (Antonio
Guerra) and Celestina (Dea Lanzaro) who try to survive as best
they can, helping each other.
One night they embark as stowaways on a ship headed to New York
to go and live with Celestina's sister who emigrated months
earlier.
The two children join the many Italian emigrants seeking fortune
in America and disembark in an unknown metropolis that seems
truly wonderful to them.
Pierfrancesco Favino, who plays Garofalo in the film, a lovable
purser on the ship who at a certain point thinks of adopting the
two children, says on the theme of solidarity: "This film does
not pretend to give lessons to anyone, but tells the story of
two people, Fellini and (screenwriter friend Tullio) Pinelli,
who with their imagination looked at this America as a dream,
thinking of a coming-of-age story, but it is also true that as
far as solidarity is concerned, if you look at things in another
way the future can be better".
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