Synopsis
EVVIVA GIUSEPPE ("Long Live Giuseppe") is a film about Giuseppe Bertolucci's life, experience and many outstanding talents: film, theatre and television director; writer, poet, talent scout, and cultural organizer.
The story is told through the voice of his father Attilio (who recalls Giuseppe's "painful privilege" of being a younger son); that of his elder brother Bernardo (who movingly recounts his birth, the games they played as teenagers... and his own desire of infecting him with his passion for the cinema); the accounts of friends and colleagues such as Lidia Ravera, Mimmo Rafele, Marco Tullio Giordana and Nanni Moretti (who describes him as "the first times man", which seems like the title of a film by Aki Kaurismaki, a film director much loved by Giuseppe); the memories of some of his favourite actresses: Stefania Sandrelli, Laura Morante and Sonia Bergamasco. With the contribution of Gina Luca Farinelli (director of the Cineteca di Bologna, where Giuseppe was President for over ten years); the participation of Fabrizio Gifuni (who reads from works by Giuseppe), Emanuele Trevi (who reads a story of his about Giuseppe's last days), Aldo Nove (in some of whose works I hear echoes of Giuseppe's thoughts); and of course with the concluding monologue by Roberto Benigni, who for the first time recites a piece he has written in tribute to his long-time friend, now gone!
Last but not least, there is Giuseppe’s person and voice, which we encounter again in many interviews, backstage talks, debates... and above all in his last and moving theatre performance: TO MY FATHER - A LIFE IN POETRY, in which he discusses the anxiety and joy of his relationship with a father poet who had turned him into poetical subject matter.