The producer of Don't Be Bad, Italy's candidate film for the foreign-language Academy Award, realises he is up against stiff competition but is ready for all-out battle to win the honour.
"We are like a little provincial team that suddenly finds itself fighting in the Champions League," said producer Valerio Mastandrea as he attended the 11th edition of the Cinema Italian Style showcase of contemporary Italian films in Los Angeles.
"I can assure you that we will not play in defense, but with a very offensive formation...we will try to do our best to honour this extraordinary privilege we have been given," he said.
Don't Be Bad, the final film of late director Claudio Caligari, who died in May, follows the hedonistic life of a group of characters living in the seaside town of Ostia near Rome in the 1990s, whose world revolves around money, drugs and luxury cars.
It is set to receive the first feedback from the American public when it airs at the Italian film show this week. Mastandrea said he hoped it would be appreciated by American audiences, while he was also ready to pick up a few tips from US film producers.
"From American cinema we can learn to work more on pre-production and on aspects related to the cinema industry: they are really good at this," he said.
The Cinema Italian Style festival has been encouraged by Culture Minister Dario Franceschini and is set to show a total of 11 films, including Paolo Sorrentino's Youth and Renato De Maria's Italian Gangsters.
Several female Italian directors are also attending the festival, including Francesca Archibugi and Maria Sole Tognazzi, who said they were happy to see the representation of women improving "Yes, our numbers are increasing, this is the trend," said Tognazzi and Archibugi. "But we prefer to avoid the distinction between men and women. We are not men and women, we are directors, everyone has their own vision." The festival is taking place amid a revival of interest in Italian cinema around the world, said Roberto Cicutto, head of Italian cinema promoters Luce Cinecittà.
"Up to a short time ago, to see an Italian film abroad you had to go to some sort of special showing or festival, and it was difficult to find them in cinemas. But in recent times the trend has changed and our films are coming out in cinemas all over the world," Cicutto said.
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