• Protagonists:

  Vito Zucchi (Bruno), Alessio Gambon (Roberto)
• co-starrings:

  Lucia Messina, Marianna Fernetich, Cristina Da Ponte, Flavia Gramaccioni, P.P. Sovran, Nicola Civitarese .
• Special figurations:

  the dachshund Lupin
• Extras

  almost 200

FILM PLOT

Bruno Copetti is a seventy year old lawyer, sick of muscular dystrophy and a little dull. Widower for many years he has two daughters just over 20 Martina and Valentina, an office in the center of Udine and a house in the hills about twenty minutes from the city.
He’s a character more from the eighties than the twenty-first century, useless on the computer, with a mobile phone, with anything to do with technology or innovation.
He’s quite attached to everything ‘vintage’, to old style products which always last longer than the new, as he says. You can see this from his clothing, forever retro and from his thirty year old Mercedes, looked after manically and always perfectly polished.
Roberto Londero, on the other hand is a handsome twenty-five year old man, single, brilliant, he’s just graduated in Science of Communication and is about to fly off abroad to take his Masters.
He is the only son of a rich businessman from Udine, he loves enjoying his enchanted life, but even so he has his head well on his shoulders, unlike a great number of “daddy boys” from his generation.
He lives with his father in a lavish villa just a few kilometres from Udine.
Computers, tablets, the latest smartphones, high technology gyms, a private swimming pool and a house by the sea. He’s not wanting for anything.
Our two characters don’t know each other even though they live so close by.
Friday 12th August. The hot midsummer’s weekend, a national holiday ”ferragosto” in Italy, has just begun.
Italy is in fact almost completely at a stand still because of persistent and endless train and plane strikes and no public services are available. Bruno’s daughters have already left for a couple of days in Molise, guests of his wife’s relatives.
On Sunday Andrea, her nephew, is getting married and the women have taken advantage of the occasion and are taking a couple of days extra in the holiday sun.
Bruno has promised them that he will just finish a couple of things in the office but that he will join them later that night. But the day starts to become challenging right from the start.
His old faithful car fails to start so Bruno goes off to the main square to try and get a lift to the closest garage so he can see about hiring a car.
In the meantime Roberto is getting himself ready to go and stay for a couple of days in the house by the sea in Lignano. He says goodbye to his father and then heads for the shore in his new Fiat Cabrio.
Poor Bruno is waiting at the bus stop hoping that someone he knows will pass and give him a lift when he sees a shiny red new 500 Cabrio approaching.
Roberto, in the car, is curious about the mature aged man hitching a ride and stops to see if he can help in any way.
And so the two men meet, and Roberto; understanding quickly that Bruno needs a hand, offers him a lift into Udine to look for a place to hire a car. He has no real reason to rush off to Lignano.
But unfortunately, maybe obviously, all the garages are closed for the holiday and after giving it a little thought, the young man offers Bruno a lift to Ronchi airport, sure that there should be an international car hire firm open there.
But they don’t have any luck there either. There are no cars available until the late evening. Bruno is desperate but it seems he has met his guardian angel.
Roberto changes his plans entirely and to Bruno’s surprise, decides to give him a lift all the way to Molise, in exchange for a fish dinner and a nights board in a hotel.
It seems to be a incongruous meeting but it’s the beginning of an exciting adventure for them both.
These events could only happen in Italy… of course.
The traffic is chock-a-block, with not only the motorways paralyzed but also the inland and coastal roads around them, which were full and slow moving, which leads them to make deviations and to stop in the various regions that they pass through: Emilia Romagna, Marche, Abruzzo and Molise.
And so Bruno and Roberto become new friends, sharing confidences and, as they discover, both a love for food and especially regional food.
In fact in every region they go through, for one reason or another, they stop in a typical bar, inn or tavern to sample the local wares. They are both shown to have great appetites.
On the way they meet many different characters, from the elderly fisherman in the Lagoon of Marano to Roberto’s perturbing student friend, from the lorry driver from Molisano, who helps them after an accident, to the voluptuous innkeeper who bewitches the young man.
And so having spent a night in Romagna, and the next in a charming village in Molisano, they arrive just in time for the wedding.
The end of the film will be even more unexpected and a surprise.
But one should never reveal the end, because each of us should be allowed to imagine it as we like.
This is really what could happen to you in an Italian midsummer holiday…

CREDITS
Executive Production: Sunfilms
Original Screenplay: Christian Canderan
Camera: Davide Cancian
Boom operator: Davide Giangaspare
Direction of Production: Marino Olivotto
Editing and coloring: Christian Canderan, Davide Cancian
Original Musics: Frizzi, Comini e Tonazzi, Eliana Cargnelutti, Giò, Doro Gjat, Medium
Sound Post-production: Franco Feruglio, Marco Giardina
Direction: Christian Canderan