Italiano
La California di Cinzia Bomoll, distributed by Officine Ubu, will be released in Italian cinemas on Thursday, November 24th, 2022. The film was presented in the section Freestyle of the 17th Rome Film Fest.
LA CALIFORNIA
Director
Cinzia Bomoll
Nations
Italy, Chile
Year
2022
Duration
100′
Cast
Piera Degli Esposti
Silvia and Giulia Provvedi
Lodo Guenzi
Eleonora Giovanardi
Alfredo Castro
Riccardo Frascari
Nina Zilli
Angela Baraldi
Andrea Roncato
Who was Ester? Everyone assumes she killed herself, but with the tenacity of those who have always fought for justice in the town named La California, the truth will out. The future will be a place where people can “breathe”, thanks to the solidarity of the small community.
COMMENTARY
A young woman’s dead body lies in an old bathtub in the open countryside, while another girl, her twin, observes the scene. Their story rewinds in time, starting here. Part-film noir, part-comedy, the film is an immersion in Italy’s heartland, in all its myriad variations and dimensions. At times a frontier, at others a place to find one’s identity; or a place to leave behind in search of new identities. La California is the countryside between the Via Emilia and the West, made up of so many microcosms interwoven into a genuine collectivity both visceral and ironic: Emilian. Written by the director, Cinzia Bomoll, together with Piera degli Esposti (the narrator, on her last film), La California mixes faces, types, and atmospheres and plays on the surreal ease of a community where, alongside the twins, the eccentric figures played by Nina Zilli, Angela Baraldi, Vito, Lodo Guenzi, Andrea Roncato, and even Chilean film legend Alfredo Castro can all co-exist.
CINZIA BOMOLL
Cinzia Bomoll grew up outside Bologna and starting making short films at the age of 17. After obtaining a film degree at the University of Bologna, she moved to Rome in 2002. In 2001, she wrote, directed, and produced her first feature film for television, Rahil’s Secret, winner of the UNICEF Award, then acquired by Netflix USA and Amazon Prime. In 2011, she directed the feature film Balla con noi – Let’s dance, written by Massimiliano Bruno and Pier Paolo Piciarelli and released in 13 countries.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I got into this story right away, since I’ve always wanted there to be two of me.” Piera Degli Esposti’s remark sums up the whole idea of the film. The story of the twin female stars is also, metaphorically speaking, the story of the double in each of us. When they become women, one of the two disappears, as often happens with our dark side. The thriller plot device that makes that happen here is integrated with grotesque portraits of the small, godforsaken, provincial community with a name that would suggest otherwise: La California. The film was made with anamorphic lenses from the 1970s, with their ability to deform reality, just as our imagination does when the impulse to escape kicks in.
