Glory Hole, the film by director Romano Montesarchio, begins its journey in China. It will be presented as a world premiere on June 20 in the Panorama section of the 26th edition of the Shanghai International Film Festival 2024, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, which takes place from June 14 to 23.
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A New Visionary Approach
After a long career as a documentary maker, the Caserta-born director Romano Montesarchio, who has always focused on themes of marginality (as in “La Domitiana” and “Ritratti abusivi”) and crime (see “Black Mafia”), abandons the realism that characterized his previous works to explore reality with a visionary filmic approach.
Setting and Plot
The film was shot between Casal di Principe, Caserta and Naples, and is set almost entirely in a bunker. The plot tells the criminal parable of a man and his inability to love and relate to beauty. Silvestro (masterfully played by Francesco Di Leva), a white-collar worker in the Camorra, meets beauty in the gaze of Alba (Mariacarla Casillo), daughter of the boss he works for (Gaetano Di Vaio, who also stars in the film). This fateful encounter pushes the man, unable to measure himself with the purity of the girl's love, to commit an irreparable act. To save himself, Silvestro, with the complicity of a priest in crisis (Mario Pirrello) and an eccentric owner of private clubs (Roberto De Francesco), his childhood friends, must hide in an underground bunker. In this dark place, between hallucinations and memories, he will be forced to deal with his past and his feelings of guilt, understanding that it is possible to escape everything except oneself.
A Distinctive Microcosm
Leaving the beaten track of Southern Italy's criminal narrative, the film focuses on a little-explored aspect of the life of a Camorra man, the most intimate and private one: life inside a bunker. A distinctive and inviolable microcosm that offers refuge and scope for action to the bosses despite their time in hiding. However, the film does not focus on the criminal dynamics but on the dreams and visions of the protagonist, immersing itself in the darkness of the place where he is forced to lock himself up.
Production and Technical Staff
“Glory Hole” is produced by Giovanna Crispino and Gaetano Di Vaio for Bronx Film, Minerva Pictures, Eskimo, Rai Cinema, with the contribution of the Ministry of Culture (General Directorate of Cinema), the Campania Region and the Fondazione Film Commission Campania. The film is written by Montesarchio himself together with Edgardo Pistone and Stefano Russo, the photography is by Matteo Vieille Rivara, the editing by Davide Franco, the scenography by Massimiliano Forlenza and the music by maestro Mario Tronco.
Article published on 19 June 2024 - 17:00
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