ITALY, FRANCE, SWISS

LA CHIMERA

2023 – DCP – color – 134’

Direction: Alice Rohrwacher

Screenplay: Alice Rohrwacher

Cinematography: Hélène Louvart

Editing: Nelly Quettier

Set design: Emita Frigato 

Costumes: Loredana Buscemi

Cast: Josh O’Connor (Arthur), Carol Duarte (Italia), Isabella Rossellini (Flora), Alba Rohrwacher (Spartaco), Vincenzo Nemolato (Pirro), Lou Roy Lecollinet (Melodie), Giuliano Mantovani (Jerry), Gian Piero Capretto (Mario), Melchiorre Pala (Melchiorre), Ramona Fiorini (Fabiana), Luca Gargiullo (il portuale the port worker), Yile Vianello (Beniamina), Barbara Chiesa (Nella), Elisabetta Perotto (Vera), Chiara Pazzaglia (Rossa), Francesca Carrain (Sista), Luciano Vergaro (Katir), Carlo Tarmati (local police officer)

Producer: Carlo Cresto-Dina in co-production with Alexandra Henochsberg, Pierre-François Piet, Gregory Gajos, Michela Pini, Amel Soudani, Olga Lamontanara

Production: Tempesta / Carlo Cresto-Dina (It) con Rai Cinema (It) in coproduzione con in coproduction with Ad Vitam Production (Fr), Amka Films Productions (Sv), ARTE France Cinéma (Fr), RSI Radiotelevisione Svizzera (Sv) 

Distribution: 01 Distribution

synopsis

Everyone pursues their own chimera, without ever being able to grasp it. For some it is the dream of getting-rich-quick, for others the pursuit of an ideal love… Returning to a small town on the Tyrrhenian Sea, Arthur reunites with his ill-fated band of grave-robbers, thieves of Etruscan burial relics and archaeological wonders. Arthur has a gift that he puts to use in service of the gang: he senses emptiness, a void of the land in which lie the vestiges of a past world. The same emptiness that is left within him by the memory of his lost love, Beniamina. In an adventurous journey between the living and the dead, through woods and cities, admist festivals and solitudes, the intertwined destinies of these characters unfold, all in search of the Chimera.

the director: Alice Rohrwacher

Born in Fiesole, she initially wrote and worked as a musician for the theater before venturing into filmmaking, originally as a documentary film editor. In 2011 she shot her first feature, Heavenly Body, selected at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes and then at the Sundance, New York, London, Rio and Tokyo festivals. With her second feature film, The Wonders, she won the Grand Prix at Cannes, and her third film Happy As Lazzaro, also at Cannes, received an award for Best Screenplay. In 2016 she staged Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata at Teatro Valli in Reggio Emilia. In 2021 she presented at Cannes (Fortnight) the documentary Futura, co-directed with Pietro Marcello and Francesco Munzi. In 2023 she was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Live Action Shorts category for The Pupils co-produced by Alfonso Cuarón for Disney.

director’s statement

“In the place where I grew up, it wasn’t unusual to hear stories of hidden treasures, clandestine excavations and mysterious adventures. (..) Life in my surroundings consisted of several parts: a sunny, contemporary, busy one, and a nocturnal, mysterious, secret one. There were many layers, and we all experienced them (…) One only needed to visit the nearby stables and cellars to realize that these places had once been something else, perhaps Etruscan tombs, shelters from previous eras, sacred sites. This proximity between the sacred and the profane, between death and life, which characterized all the years of my growing up always fascinated me and gave my perspective a unique dimension. That is why I finally decided to make a film that revealed this layered storyline, this relationship between two worlds, probably the last piece of a triptych about a territory grappling with a central question: what to do with the past? Death is something our society often forces us to deal with as individuals or at most within a family. Yet, as I confronted the past, I learned to view the idea of death as integrated into life and community.”

filmography

2006 La fiumara (doc., episodio Checosamanca)

2011 Corpo celeste

2014 Le meraviglie

2015 The Djess (short)

2018 Lazzaro felice

2020 L’amica geniale (ep. 3-4)

2020 Omelia contadina (short, codirected)

2020 Quattro strade (short)

2021 Futura (doc, codirected)

2022 Le pupille (short)

2023 La chimera

festival

2023 Festival di Cannes – Competition