“Politeama – A Concert Reading “, a unique event at the Casa del Cinema

1 – 2 November at 4 pm Casa del Cinema (Largo Marcello Mastroianni, 1)
Free admission while seats last
Wednesday November 1^st and Thursday November 2^nd at the Casa del Cinema, the 12^th Rome Film Fest will hold a special event curated by Mario Sesti and titled “Politeama – A Concert Reading”. Starting at 4 pm, it will feature a complete reading of “Politeama”, the debut novel by one of the most important autIeurs of contemporary cinema, Gianni Amelio.
The novel will be read in its entirety by a spectacular troupe of actors, actresses, writers, intellectuals and friends, who will bring to life a biography as touching, spellbinding, stirring and tragic biography as a film. The readers will include Luca Argentero, Paolo Briguglia, Francesco Bruni, Pino Calabrese, Renato Carpentieri, Roberto Citran, Serena Dandini, Roberto De Francesco, Giuliana De Sio, Piera Degli Esposti, Fabrizio Falco, Iaia Forte, Stefano Fresi, Elio Germano, Monica Guerritore, Raffaella Lebboroni, Enrico Lo Verso, Valentina Lodovini, Marco Messeri, Micaela Ramazzotti, Lina Sastri, Giulio Scarpati, Massimo Venturiello, Nora Venturini.
The musical accompaniment will feature Tosca (voice), Massimo de Lorenzi (guitar), Ermanno Dodaro (double bass) and Giovanna Famulari (cello).
Admission is free while seats last.

Politeama by Gianni Amelio (Mondadori)
In the uneasy atmosphere of southern Italy in the 1950s, Luigino’s childhood is one of hardship and rage, that drives him into adulthood too early. With no family bonds to speak of, because his young mother has been locked up in a mental asylum and no one has ever even known the name of his father. Luigino has a dream: to sing on the radio and even on nascent television. As he grows up, facing misfortune with great courage and candidly accepting the fragility of his own impulses, his voice becomes softer and more graceful, like those of the divas at Sanremo or the great revue showgirls. Which someone suggests he imitate in circus arenas or vaudeville shows. Audiences applaud and mock him, glorify and humiliate him, but none succeed in subverting his natural innocence. When the doors to the entertainment world brutally shut him out, Luigi decides to leave for Rome, to seek his place in the world, but he finds himself surrounded by people on the brink of an invisible precipice. Until one night he meets Elide, a fifteen-year-old waitress on her own, like he is, who for a minute allows him to savour the sweetness of love, and the next minute, the heartbreak of abandon, dragging his life into a brutal spiral whose outcome will be unpredictable.