NIRVANA
ITALY – 1997 – DCP – color – 111’
Direction: Gabriele Salvatores
Screenplay: Gabriele Salvatores, Gloria Corica, Pino Cacucci
Cinematography: Italo Petriccione
Editing: Massimo Fiocchi
Set design: Giancarlo Basili
Music: Mauro Pagani,Federico de’ Robertis
Costumes: Giorgio Armani
Cast: Christopher Lambert (Jimi Dini),Diego Abatantuono (Solo), Sergio Rubini (Joystick), Stefania Rocca (Naima), Emmanuelle Seigner (Lisa), Gigio Alberti (Ratzenberger), Amanda Sandrelli (Maria), Claudio Bisio (Red Crow), Silvio Orlando (Indian employee), Paolo Rossi (Joker), Antonio Catania (seller), Marcello Mazzarella
Producers: Vittorio e Rita Cecchi Gori
Production: C.G.G. Tiger Cin.Ca
SYNOPSIS
In the Northern conglomerate, in a future invaded by technology, videogame creator Jimi works for the multinational Okosama,which for Christmas will put its new game on the market: Nirvana. Three days are left to its launch and Jimi, who was left by Lisa,realizes that a virus has infected the program. Solo, the protagonist of the videogame, has realized that he’s just a virtual characterliving in a fake world, where he will have to repeat the same actions over and over again; so he asks Jimi to free him from thatbondage and cancel him. Jimi agrees and, in order to do this, he needs to enter the Okosama database. Jimi teams up with thehacker Joystick and with Naima, a hardware expert who has lost her memory and can only insert artificial memories into her head.
CRTICAL NOTE
“Nirvanais a spectacular and immediately gripping, engaging film, an example of sociological science fiction, very cyber, thatreworks with originality suggestions borrowed from authors of cybernetic literature and non-fiction, such as Philip K. Dick, NormanSpinrad, Norbert Wiener. But there’s also the psychedelia of William Borroughs and Timothy Leary, the “acid” prophets gonedirectly from LSD to the Internet, captivated by the “windows” that the virtual reality may open on consciences.” (Oscar Iarussi,LaGazzetta del Mezzogiorno, 24 January 1997)
AWARDS
1997 Flaiano Award: Golden Pegasus for Best Director ex-aequo with Aki Kaurismäki for Nuvole in viaggio