It is a 2019 film directed by Ginevra Elkann, her very first directorial debut. It was presented as the opening film at the Locarno Festival on 7 August 2019, in a world premiere. Distributed in Switzerland under the title “Tutti insieme” (All Together), the film was screened on 27 January at the Lunchkino-Special in Zurich, at the Arthouse Le Paris, in the presence of the director. The lead actors are: Riccardo Scamarcio, Alba Rohrwacher, Céline Sallette, Benjamin Baroche, Oro De Commarque, Ettore Giustiniani, Milo Roussel. It will be released in cinemas on 30 January. The original title is “Magari” (If Only), a single but important word that holds the desire and hope of a little girl to see her family of origin reunited.
From 30 January 2020 in cinemas
Ginevra Elkann’s feature film takes us into the lives of three very young siblings, Alma, Jean and Sebastiano, who live in Paris with their mother, a very wealthy Russian woman. The three travel to Rome to spend a few days of the Christmas holidays in a house by the sea with their father and his assistant Benedetta. The father, Carlo, is a penniless, womanising screenwriter who has no idea how to look after himself, let alone his children. In a moment of suspension from their real lives, the knots of the family’s tensions come to a head. Carlo discovers dark sides of his ex-wife and shows his children that he is an unreliable father, yet at the same time incredibly charismatic, and despite the daily challenges and tensions, little Alma keeps firmly believing that one day, maybe, her family will be able to become united again as it once was. Through the eyes and feelings of the three little protagonists, but above all through Alma’s narrating voice, the director allows us to look at the family dynamics that revolve around a divorce. Alma is also the clearest autobiographical reference, as the director herself states in an interview in which she declares: “the film is born of an autobiographical feeling, the same feeling that Alma has, with her ‘magari’ that was also mine when I was little”.
It is a film that makes you reflect and that shows the point of view of a little girl who tries to accept the end of her parents’ relationship, but who hopes with all her heart, until the very end, that they can find their way back to each other. The reading that “Magari” wants to convey is that within each of us dwells a part of that experience, of that affective lack matured in the first years of our life and destined to accompany us as it goes on, creating unexpected fears. Ginevra Elkann invites us to let ourselves go, to mix memory, our past sorrows and our dreams in the same way little Alma does, that is, imagining with open eyes couples of spouses with changing faces that do not depict only those of dad and mum. Although Scamarcio and Rohrwacher live up to their magnificent reputation, thanks to performances full of nuances and small quirks, it is Oro De Commarque, in the role of Alma, who steals the scene. The director Elkann shows an incredible ability to handle heavy themes in a light and entertaining way; we at Tuttoitalia are sure that this film will be greatly liked and will bring back, a little for all of us, family dynamics already experienced.
The film will be released in the following Swiss cities:
Aarau
Basel
Bern
Dübendorf
Olten
Solothurn
St. Gallen
Winterthur
Zürich
Discover all the show times at: www.movies.ch/de/kinoprogramm/f/magari
