The Great Silence

Naples in the 1960s. Valerio Primic was once a bestselling writer; he can no longer write the way he used to, and he has told nobody. The decaying family villa has been put up for sale, which his wife Rose and their two children accept and he violently does not. There is also Bettina, the servant who has been in that house for years, and she is the one who actually says things out loud. Alessandro Gassmann adapted the film from Maurizio de Giovanni's play of the same name, with Massimiliano Gallo, who played Valerio on stage, in the part. Margherita Buy plays Rose and Marina Confalone plays Bettina. It screened in the special events section at Venice, and it carries the smell of the theatre on purpose.