Parthenope: New Image of Paolo Sorrentino’s Film in Competition at Cannes

Parthenope, by Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino, will have its world premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival (here is the entire official selection). The film tells, in the words of Paolo Sorrentino, the long journey of Parthenope’s life, from 1950, when he was born, until today. An epic of the feminine without heroism, but inhabited by the inexorable passion for freedom, for Naples, and the unpredictable faces of love. The real, the useless, and the unspeakable, which condemn you to pain. And then they make you start again. The perfect Capri summer, as kids, wrapped in lightheartedness. And the ambush of the end. Youths have this in common: brevity.

Parthenope: New Image of Paolo Sorrentino’s Film

And then all the others, the Neapolitans, lived, observed, loved, men and women, disillusioned and vital, their melancholic drifts, the tragic ironies, the slightly dejected eyes, the impatience, the loss of hope of being able to laugh again once for a distinguished man who stumbles and falls in a downtown street. Life can be very long, memorable, or ordinary. The passage of time gives the whole repertoire of feelings. And there at the end, near and far, this indefinable city, Naples, which bewitches, enchants, screams, laughs, and then knows how to hurt you.

In the cast, in alphabetical order, Dario Aita, Celeste Dalla Porta, Silvia Degrandi, Isabella Ferrari, Lorenzo Gleijeses, Biagio Izzo, Marlon Joubert, Peppe Lanzetta, Nello Mascia, Gary Oldman, Silvio Orlando, Luisa Ranieri, Daniele Rienzo, Stefania Sandrelli and  Alfonso Santagata. The film, shot between Naples and Capri, is an Italy-France co-production. Written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, it is a Fremantle film produced by Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment Pictures, a Fremantle group company, Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent, Paolo Sorrentino for Numero 10, and Ardavan Safaee for Pathé. The director of photography is Daria D’antonio, the Costume Artistic Director is Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent, the costume designer is Carlo Poggioli, the editor is Cristiano Travaglioli, the production designer is Carmine Guarino, the casting is Annamaria Sambucco and Massimo Appolloni.