Santa Maradona

In Turin, Andrea is unemployed and keeps giving answers that are not his own in job interviews. His flatmate Bart writes plays and finishes none of them. Meeting Dolores does not change Andrea's life, it only makes visible how stalled it is. Marco Ponti's first film. Stefano Accorsi plays Andrea, Libero De Rienzo plays Bart, Anita Caprioli plays Dolores. It won two David di Donatello awards in 2002: Ponti for best new director, De Rienzo for best supporting actor. In Italy it was taken as a generational film. It speaks the language of a cohort approaching thirty with degrees and no work, with film and music references woven into the dialogue. The interview scenes are the best of it: increasingly absurd answers to the same questions, turning comedy slowly into helplessness. De Rienzo's energy gives the film its rhythm; the actor died in 2021 at forty-four. Who it is for: viewers who like talkative Italian youth films and generational portraits. Who it is not for: anyone wanting incident; this is almost entirely conversation.