Shince and Fernando in a still from ‘This Is Not Cricket’ by Jacopo de Bertoldi
I found my love for cricket within an Italian filmmaker’s documentary that has little to do with the game and much more with humanity’s place within it. Well, the film is called ‘This Is Not Cricket’ after all, and the filmmaker is wonderfully fresh voice in documentary, Jacopo de Bertoldi. A man with whom every conversation turns into an explanation of life.
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I’ll admit straight away, I’m partial to Nanni Moretti’s art. I adore his style and his films have inspired various stages of my life. In fact, I find myself reconnected to my Italian roots so deeply thanks to him.
But I did go to watch his latest, the documentary ‘Santiago, Italia’ with a grain of skepticism. I mean, Moretti proved he’s capable of making a kind of documentary many years ago, in 1998 to be exact, with the reality based ‘Aprile’. But could he hold my interest for 80 minutes with an archival film based about the coup in Chile, the original horrors of a September 11th which came long before our US one, and left their fairly elected president dead, with many other tortured and missing?
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From left, Angela Fontana, Blu Yoshimi Di Martino and Denise Tantucci in 'Likemeback'
During this year's Locarno Festival, a few of the films I watched although narrative features, felt more like documentaries. Wonderfully gratifying documentaries without judgement or a cliche point of view in sight.
One such film was Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli's 'Likemeback'. Perhaps because of the spontaneous acting by three exceptional young women -- Angela Fontana as Danila, Denise Tantucci as Carla and Blu Yoshimi Di Martino as Lavinia -- or maybe due to Guerra Seràgnoli's script and intimate way of filming this trio of friends on vacation on a sail boat, 'Likemeback' felt real.
Unforced and unequivocally cool.
In this age of #MeToo and TimesUp movements, 'Likemeback' offers a cautionary tale on the power of female sexuality and seduction and how that can be harnessed for the worst intentions. But it also places us in a front row seat on viewing the dangers of social media, when in the hands of the young and inexperienced.
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