STATEMENT BY FEST PRESIDENT GOFFREDO BETTINI

“A maestro of cinema like Alain Corneau; a re-visitation of one of the all-time noir masterpieces, Le Deuxième souffle; and a first-class cast led by magnificent performers adored by our audience such as Daniel Auteuil and Monica Bellucci. These are all clear pointers to the expectations and objectives we have set ourselves for this year’s competition at the RomeFilmFest: great cinema to arouse great emotions. For all these reasons I am delighted that an eagerly-awaited European film like Le Deuxième souffle will be opening this year’s competition on the inaugural day of the festival”.

Le Deuxième souffle by Alain Corneau is set to open the official competition at the RomeFilmFest on October 18. The film, being presented on opening night, is based on the eponymous book by José Giovanni (already providing inspiration for Jean Pierre Melville in 1966). This new production marks the zenith of the director who brought us the film noirs Le Choix des armes and Série noire, a genre in which he has always been a passionate performer and unsurpassed innovator.

The cast – one of the most impressive French cinema line-ups in recent years – brings together Daniel Auteil (Gu), MonicaBellucci (Manouche), Eric Cantona (Alban), Michel Blanc (inspector Blot) as well as genuine noir icons such as Jacques Dutronc (Orloff) and Daniel Duval (Venture Ricci).

Produced by Arp Sélection, Christal Films and Wild Bunch (also handling international distribution), Le Deuxième souffle will premiere in Rome just a few days before its release in French theatres.

Shot in the locations used in the original story – between Paris, Marseilles and Bouches du Rhône – the film is set at the end of the 1950s. It tells the final odyssey of dangerous gangster Gu: having escaped from prison and being hunted by the police, he is trying to find a safe passage over the border to Italy, together with his partner, Manouche. To ‘buy’ his freedom, he agrees to take part in one last robbery, which he manages to pull off successfully. But times have changed, the criminals’ code of honour has been replaced by the greed of a new breed of sharks and even the  police aren’t what they once were. Gu will meet his destiny head on, while managing to maintain his dignity and his past intact.