LA BELLA ESTATE by Laura Luchetti will premiere at Locarno International Film Festival 2023 at the Piazza Grande. Producer Giovanni Pompili (ACE Italy) participated with the project in the ACE 30 Annual Programme.
1938. Young Ginia has just moved to Turin from the countryside. Looking for adventure she discovers the dazzling artists’ world and begins an affair with a painter. Amelia, the model who leads her into the bohemian quarters, is sensual, free, and different from anyone she has ever met. During her ‘beautiful summer’, Ginia yields to her first great love, celebrating the courage to be truly herself.
How did the ACE Annual Programme benefit you as a producer, and your ACE project?
Participating in the ACE Annual Programme definitely was a turning point for my education and career, as well as strengthening my industry knowledge and my international network. Meeting and sharing with my peers always brings different points of view on common topics and this is absolutely the greatest value the experience can bring. It helped me a lot to be able to look at myself from the right distance to my professional experience and to the company management.
And: The Annual Programme doesn’t finish with the workshop, but the ACE journey starts with it, being part of the association today is extremely important.
Unfortunately, we experienced it in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and we were still not used to handling this kind of online engagement. I did the first session from a hotel room while we were in Sardinia on the set of a shooting (SILENT LAND, co-produced with Lava Films and I/O Post) with COVID alert and protocol to manage and it was difficult to stay 100% focused. However, the ACE team did a tremendous job of making it as interactive and inspiring as possible. The feedback from my script team was invaluable, it was really the confrontation I needed at that time.
What was the most challenging in getting this film from script to the screen?
Making a film based on a book is always a great challenge. If the book is written by Pavese, a master of Italian literature, the challenge is even greater. With Laura, we talked a lot and the only way to respect such an important author was to make him our own. So, the script itself was the first challenge. In the production build-up, we had another big challenge given the fact that the film was supposed to be a co-production with France but four months before shooting everything fell through.
Thanks to our associate partners Lucky Red, Tapeless and True Colours who are handling international sales, we’ve managed to get to the set without changing or reducing the shooting days.
What’s ahead for you and your company? What are you currently working on?
In San Sebastián we will premiere in competition with PUAN, directed by Maria Alche and Benjamin Naishtat, a film I’m super proud of! It is an Argentinian-Brasilian-Italian-French-German co-production, led by Pasto and Pucara Cine together with Infinity Hill – Pandora Filmproduktion (Germany) – Atelier de Production (France) – Bubbles Project (Brazil)
In post-production, we have currently two films, the second feature by Carlo Sironi starring the French actress Noee Abita and co-produced with Julie Billy at June film in France and a minority co-production with the Netherlands based on the book A Beautiful Imperfection by Arthur Japin. It is produced together with Maarten Swart at Kaap Holland Films and Eye-Works Belgium starring Dar Zuso and Jonah Hauer-King.
In October we will have the principal photography of POLVO SERAN, directed by Carlos Marques-Marcet in co-production with Lastor Media (Spain) and Alina Films (Switzerland).
We are developing more films, both majority and minority co-production, it is in our souls to work on stories regardless of the passport of the authors. But the biggest challenge is to structure the company so that it can be independent of me, that is, to train professionals who can one day carry on what I started ten years ago.
