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Director's Statement
LA PRIMA COSA BELLA is one of the chirpy, romantic songs that Anna Nigiotti-Michelucci sings to her children, Bruno and Valeria, to cheer them up during the tough times they endure after her husband Mario throws the three of them out in a jealous rage. It's the early '70s: Bruno is 8, Valeria is 5. Their stunningly beautiful mother is unexpectedly crowned Miss Mamma on a balmy summer night at the Bagni Pancaldi, Livorno's most famous bath house. From that moment on, Mario loses his head, unable to bear the unwelcome attention showered on his gorgeous young wife. All this unfolds before the sweet, naive gaze of Valeria and the watchful eyes of Bruno, ever alert of the family disputes and people's malicious gossip. These are the years when provincial Italy seems to have lost its innocence, and the wanderings of this jovial, wishful and unlucky mother, with her two kids in tow, are filled with as many false hopes as dangers encountered along the way. Today, Bruno is an unhappy, unemotional forty-something who abandoned his small hometown years ago. After much hostility, his sister Valeria persuades him to return to Livorno to say his last goodbyes to their dying mother. But he's in for a surprise: despite the clinical evidence, Anna is still beautiful, carefree, hungry for life. What should have been a quick visit turns into Bruno's chance to come to terms with a past he had stubbornly tried to forget. And Anna's passing finally becomes a celebration of life, where the pain of loss is bearable and bittersweet. It has been a moving experience for me to shoot this movie in the city I tried to escape a quarter of a century ago. Evidently, I couldn't stay away. Livorno is my own personal stage, a bit like Newark is for Philip Roth, Boulder for John Fante, or the Rione Sanita for Mario Merola. It's a city teeming with extraordinary stories of ordinary people that I am excited to tell and put on film. Maybe because we're all going through rough times, in which our society is seething with resentment and distrust, and maybe also because my last film, Tutta la vita davanti, brought me face to face with today's disturbing issues and many troubling figures - this time around I wanted to take shelter in the warmth of this story, about characters we all grow to love: the circle of life and its painful but joyful mysteries, in a family like many others. For once, maybe, no social commentary. Only the vibrant pieces of my heart.