When asked, in 2019, to explain why her first three features begin during the night, Alice Rohrwacher recalled the long drives she would take with her beekeeping father as a child and how, upon arrival, she’d play a game by closing her eyes: “I’d have to work it out from what I could hear, not from what I could see, so I’d listen to the place and the information would enter my mind––and then I’d open my eyes.” More than most filmmakers, Rohrwacher’s particular genius seems tied to her way of thinking: that cinema is less a reflection of our imagination than a natural extension. The best ideas in her cinema seem plucked from nowhere (Lazzaro‘s time jump; the red cake in Le Pupille), yet arrive fully formed––even organic.
Premiering on the final day of Cannes, her new film doesn’t begin at...
Premiering on the final day of Cannes, her new film doesn’t begin at...
- 6/7/2023
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Hidden cinematic treasures are buried everywhere in Cannes. But even the most tireless hunters and diggers amongst us couldn’t have predicted that this year’s finest archeology film would not be found in James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” but in Alice Rohrwacher’s whimsically ethereal tapestry of romance, history and afterlife, “La Chimera.”
A rich and humorous folk tale overflowing with cultural details, aesthetic pleasures and the effervescent musicality of the Italian language, Rohrwacher’s melancholically grainy pastoral fable isn’t exactly about professional archeology, to be perfectly clear. But what some of her characters—the ancient-grave-raiding collective “tombaroli,” led by Josh O’Connor’s (“The Crown”) enigmatic Arthur—lack in bona fide archeological expertise, they make up for with rebellion and a reckless sense of aspiration.
Violating the bottomless sacred burial grounds of their little Italian village and stealing historical wonders the Etruscan people have taken to their grave,...
A rich and humorous folk tale overflowing with cultural details, aesthetic pleasures and the effervescent musicality of the Italian language, Rohrwacher’s melancholically grainy pastoral fable isn’t exactly about professional archeology, to be perfectly clear. But what some of her characters—the ancient-grave-raiding collective “tombaroli,” led by Josh O’Connor’s (“The Crown”) enigmatic Arthur—lack in bona fide archeological expertise, they make up for with rebellion and a reckless sense of aspiration.
Violating the bottomless sacred burial grounds of their little Italian village and stealing historical wonders the Etruscan people have taken to their grave,...
- 5/26/2023
- by Tomris Laffly
- The Wrap
“I had read an article which made me aware about some convicts’ kids who are born and live with their mothers in jail for a few years,” Italian helmer Andrea Magnani told Variety, ahead of the international premiere of his sophomore feature, “Jailbird,” which screens in the main competition of the Torino Film Festival. The movie revolves around young Giacinto (Adriano Tardiolo), the son of two inmates, who struggles to get out of the prison ward, until he takes part in a foot race which promises to change his life.
“This law aims not to break the bond between these kids and their mothers. I realized this was a very interesting starting point to tell a story of a different type, that of a boy who grows up but doesn’t manage to get rid of his own fears and ‘cages.’ […] This is something each one of us may relate to.
“This law aims not to break the bond between these kids and their mothers. I realized this was a very interesting starting point to tell a story of a different type, that of a boy who grows up but doesn’t manage to get rid of his own fears and ‘cages.’ […] This is something each one of us may relate to.
- 11/25/2022
- by Davide Abbatescianni
- Variety Film + TV
The Torino Film Festival, which celebrates its 40th edition this year, will open with a special musical and visual event focusing on two of the most iconic British bands – the Beatles and the Rolling Stones – and their love for cinema, which led them to work with the likes of Richard Lester, Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas, Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese.
The 70-minute event, set to be held at the prestigious Teatro Regio on Nov. 25 and broadcast by Rai Radio3, will feature “both rare and never-before-seen archive footage.”
Film critic Steve Della Casa, who served as the gathering’s artistic director from 1999-2002, is back at the helm. In his introductory remarks, he described Torino as “a true urban festival,” which places great importance on the theatrical experience, and set to attract both industry reps as well as a large young, cinephile audience. Moreover, this year’s edition will see the inauguration of Casa Festival,...
The 70-minute event, set to be held at the prestigious Teatro Regio on Nov. 25 and broadcast by Rai Radio3, will feature “both rare and never-before-seen archive footage.”
Film critic Steve Della Casa, who served as the gathering’s artistic director from 1999-2002, is back at the helm. In his introductory remarks, he described Torino as “a true urban festival,” which places great importance on the theatrical experience, and set to attract both industry reps as well as a large young, cinephile audience. Moreover, this year’s edition will see the inauguration of Casa Festival,...
- 11/8/2022
- by Davide Abbatescianni
- Variety Film + TV
Corpo Celeste (Heavenly Body), Le Meravigile (The Wonders) and Lazzaro Felice (Happy As Lazzaro) director/screenwriter Alice Rohrwacher with Alba Rohrwacher Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Cannes Best Screenplay winner Happy As Lazzaro (Lazzaro Felice), shot by Hélène Louvart, executive produced by Martin Scorsese, and starring Adriano Tardiolo with Alba Rohrwacher, Luca Chikovani, Agnese Graziani, David Bennent, Nicoletta Braschi, Sergi López, and Tommaso Ragno, was the opening night film in The Wonders: Alice and Alba Rohrwacher, organised by Museum of Modern Art Department of Film Curator Josh Siegel with Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero of Luce Cinecittà.
Alice Rohrwacher with Alba Rohrwacher: “I think fairy tales were very important for us. Especially the collection of Italian folktales done by Italo Calvino.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The casting of David Bennent (Volker Schlöndorff’s adaptation of Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum), the magic of Italo Calvino (Italian Folktales), Astrid Lindgren, Angela Carter (The...
Cannes Best Screenplay winner Happy As Lazzaro (Lazzaro Felice), shot by Hélène Louvart, executive produced by Martin Scorsese, and starring Adriano Tardiolo with Alba Rohrwacher, Luca Chikovani, Agnese Graziani, David Bennent, Nicoletta Braschi, Sergi López, and Tommaso Ragno, was the opening night film in The Wonders: Alice and Alba Rohrwacher, organised by Museum of Modern Art Department of Film Curator Josh Siegel with Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero of Luce Cinecittà.
Alice Rohrwacher with Alba Rohrwacher: “I think fairy tales were very important for us. Especially the collection of Italian folktales done by Italo Calvino.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The casting of David Bennent (Volker Schlöndorff’s adaptation of Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum), the magic of Italo Calvino (Italian Folktales), Astrid Lindgren, Angela Carter (The...
- 12/22/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Alice Rohrwacher with Alba Rohrwacher at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for The Wonders: Alice and Alba Rohrwacher Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Before the start of The Wonders: Alice and Alba Rohrwacher, organised by Museum of Modern Art Department of Film Curator Josh Siegel with Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero of Luce Cinecittà, Alice Rohrwacher, the director/screenwriter of the 2018 Cannes Best Screenplay winner Happy As Lazzaro (shared with Jafar Panahi and Nader Saeivar for Three Faces), met with me inside MoMA’s Cullman building, while the first snow of the season fell on the streets of Manhattan. Just as in her 2014 Cannes Grand Prix winner, The Wonders (Le Meravigile), her sister Alba Rohrwacher is a strong presence in Lazzaro. Alice’s first feature Corpo Celeste (Heavenly Body) had also been selected for the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.
Lazzaro (Adriano Tardiolo) with Tancredi (Luca Chikovani)
Happy As Lazzaro (Lazzaro Felice), shot by Hélène Louvart,...
Before the start of The Wonders: Alice and Alba Rohrwacher, organised by Museum of Modern Art Department of Film Curator Josh Siegel with Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero of Luce Cinecittà, Alice Rohrwacher, the director/screenwriter of the 2018 Cannes Best Screenplay winner Happy As Lazzaro (shared with Jafar Panahi and Nader Saeivar for Three Faces), met with me inside MoMA’s Cullman building, while the first snow of the season fell on the streets of Manhattan. Just as in her 2014 Cannes Grand Prix winner, The Wonders (Le Meravigile), her sister Alba Rohrwacher is a strong presence in Lazzaro. Alice’s first feature Corpo Celeste (Heavenly Body) had also been selected for the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.
Lazzaro (Adriano Tardiolo) with Tancredi (Luca Chikovani)
Happy As Lazzaro (Lazzaro Felice), shot by Hélène Louvart,...
- 12/4/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Reflecting on 2018 through the lens of its cinema proves to be an ironic feat – films that explored new ideas reflective of our culture premiered alongside a crop of “lost” or reimagined works and there was no shortage of cinematic treasures and landmarks. It was a year of exciting new work that provided a commentary on our current political conditions in various ways from Frederick Wiseman’s portrait of rural America Monrovia, Indiana to films that explored the nature of work and race such as Andrew Bujalski’s Support the Girls and Boots Riley’s timely Sorry to Bother You. When seen through the prism of film history, 2018 might be known as a year of rediscovery as it offered our first chance to see lost masterworks like The Other Side of the Wind and Amazing Grace alongside repurposed footage combined with recollections that made films like Shirkers and They Shall Not Grow Old such transcendent experiences.
- 1/2/2019
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
To the religious sceptic, a lot of miracles read smoother as metaphors: the bread not literal flesh, the wine not blood. What remains is the impulse to spin meaning, wherever it can be found, into comforting forms. In Alice Rohrwacher’s films, motifs of faith and folklore thread brief magic into working class lives. Her characters summon the immaterial to sensuous effect: a young girl cups a ray of sunlight in a dark barn, pooled warmth held against her mouth as if to drink; after a day of unpaid labor, weary workers blow wind at the turned back of a young marquis, the force of their defiance ferried by a mouth-made breeze. These innocuous transformations are reprieve from a hostile world, where the furtive movements of a changing nation are set against pockets of defiant time. In Corpo Celeste (2011), a young girl watches the Catholic church yoke its flagging customs...
- 12/19/2018
- MUBI
How good a movie year was 2018? Netflix got snubbed from the Cannes Film Festival and still managed to give the world “Roma,” “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” “Happy as Lazzaro” and a reconstruction of Orson Welles’ final film (plus two captivating documentaries about its production and restoration). The ubiquitous superhero genre gave us instant classics like “Black Panther” and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse,” and even embraced its sillier side with “Teen Titans Go! to the Movies,” “Aquaman” and “Deadpool 2.” This was a year so great that it gave us not one but two juicy lead roles for John C. Reilly.
Paring the year’s highlights down to 25, let alone 10, was no easy feat, but here goes:
#11-25 (alphabetically): “1985,” “Annihilation,” “A Bread Factory,” “Burning,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, “The Favourite,” “First Reformed,” “Lizzie,” “Private Life,” “Shoplifters,” “Skate Kitchen,” “Stan & Ollie,” “A Star Is Born,” “Tully,” “Zama...
Paring the year’s highlights down to 25, let alone 10, was no easy feat, but here goes:
#11-25 (alphabetically): “1985,” “Annihilation,” “A Bread Factory,” “Burning,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, “The Favourite,” “First Reformed,” “Lizzie,” “Private Life,” “Shoplifters,” “Skate Kitchen,” “Stan & Ollie,” “A Star Is Born,” “Tully,” “Zama...
- 12/13/2018
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
The seeds of Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro were planted long before she was the 2016 artist in residence at the 54th New York Film Festival. It was in her residency, though, that the story developed into the surreal fairytale now streaming on Netflix and in select theaters. Premiering with its Italian title Lazzaro felice at its Cannes debut, where it won Rohrwacher best screenplay, the story follows Lazzaro as he serves his neighbors in various, unbeknownst to him, humiliating ways. His Christ-like humility brings him into a spiritual contract with Tancredi, a young nobleman turned grifter, that transcends time and space.
We spoke with Rohrwacher at this year’s New York Film Festival about her third feature film, Lazzaro’s possible God-like nature, acting newcomer Adriano Tardiolo, and the links between slavery and, in the words of William Blake, “mind-forg’d manacles.”
The Film Stage: You developed the story...
We spoke with Rohrwacher at this year’s New York Film Festival about her third feature film, Lazzaro’s possible God-like nature, acting newcomer Adriano Tardiolo, and the links between slavery and, in the words of William Blake, “mind-forg’d manacles.”
The Film Stage: You developed the story...
- 12/1/2018
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
"I'm calling about a missing boy." Netflix has released a new Us trailer for the film Happy as Lazzaro, originally titled Lazzaro felice, the latest film by acclaimed Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher. This trailer celebrates the release of the film on Netflix today, for those who would like to catch this acclaimed, shot-on-film fable. It first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this summer, highly regarded as one of the best of the festival, despite not winning any awards. The film is about a boy named Lazzaro who works as a farming peasant on a tobacco farm in Italy. About halfway through, the film jumps in time to the modern day where he ends up in a city searching for his friends and family. Adriano Tardiolo stars as Lazzaro, along with Luca Chikovani, Agnese Graziani, Alba Rohrwacher, Sergi López, Natalino Balasso, Tommaso Ragno, and Nicoletta Braschi. This Us trailer is...
- 11/30/2018
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
The men and women, boys and girls crowd into the kitchen of a small house, laughing and teasing and drinking. One of the young workers who plow the fields of a tobacco farm, on the Lazio region estate where these rural laborers live, has just serenaded his true love; the young woman’s sisters tease the suitor from the window. Then they let the inebriated singers into the household, all chaos and clutter and loud celebrating. Even the dimmest of the bunch — well, not dim, but certainly the most naive — of the group,...
- 11/28/2018
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Magic can be a tricky thing to put on a movie screen, where one viewer’s rapture can be another’s Wtf. Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, making her third trip to Cannes with only her third movie, delivers a little of each with “Happy as Lazzaro” (“Lazzaro Felice”), which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
Rohrwacher’s leisurely-paced film flits between social realism (see these poor exploited workers!) and magical realism (see the boy who never ages!), in ways that are sometimes transporting and sometimes maddening. If you can surrender to her peculiar vision, its beauty is undeniable; if not, impatience may set in long before the film winds down just past the two-hour mark.
In some ways, Rohrwacher, the second of the three female directors in the competition to screen, is the polar opposite of Eva Husson, whose “Girls of the Sun” was the first of the three to screen.
Rohrwacher’s leisurely-paced film flits between social realism (see these poor exploited workers!) and magical realism (see the boy who never ages!), in ways that are sometimes transporting and sometimes maddening. If you can surrender to her peculiar vision, its beauty is undeniable; if not, impatience may set in long before the film winds down just past the two-hour mark.
In some ways, Rohrwacher, the second of the three female directors in the competition to screen, is the polar opposite of Eva Husson, whose “Girls of the Sun” was the first of the three to screen.
- 11/28/2018
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
The following essay was produced as part of the 2018 Nyff Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring film critics that took place during the 56th edition of the New York Film Festival.
From the beginning of Ulrich Köhler’s “In My Room,” the timing is already off. A cameraman, later revealed to be our middling protagonist Armin (Hans Löw), has mixed up his on and off buttons, leaving footage of a conference with all the meat missing. Just as a politician is about to speak, the image and sound cut out. “Good thing we didn’t miss that,” someone mistakenly says in the background. Too bad they did.
The film’s title (presented in English) likely references the Beach Boys’ 1963 song of the same name: “There’s a world where I can go/And tell my secrets to/In my room.” The use of the song title hints at the desire...
From the beginning of Ulrich Köhler’s “In My Room,” the timing is already off. A cameraman, later revealed to be our middling protagonist Armin (Hans Löw), has mixed up his on and off buttons, leaving footage of a conference with all the meat missing. Just as a politician is about to speak, the image and sound cut out. “Good thing we didn’t miss that,” someone mistakenly says in the background. Too bad they did.
The film’s title (presented in English) likely references the Beach Boys’ 1963 song of the same name: “There’s a world where I can go/And tell my secrets to/In my room.” The use of the song title hints at the desire...
- 10/28/2018
- by Susannah Gruder
- Indiewire
"I'm calling about a missing boy. Someone important, a Marquis." The Match Factory released a new trailer for the film Happy as Lazzaro, originally titled Lazzaro felice, the latest film made by acclaimed Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher. This premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this summer in competition, and it was highly regarded as one of the best of the festival, despite not winning any awards. It's an odd, awkward film about a boy named Lazzaro who works as a farming peasant on a tobacco farm in Italy. About halfway through, the film jumps in time to the modern day where he ends up in a city searching for his friends and family. Adriano Tardiolo stars as Lazzaro, and the cast includes Luca Chikovani, Agnese Graziani, Alba Rohrwacher, Sergi López, Natalino Balasso, Tommaso Ragno, and Nicoletta Braschi. Expect to hear a lot more about this film by the end of the year,...
- 6/20/2018
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Two Italian films, both winners in Cannes Competition, each deal with dogs (or wolves) and their beloved beauty in societies doomed to dishonoring men by the very men who created them.
Acclaimed by the audience in its premiere red carpet screening, Dogman by Matteo Garroni is less explicit than Gemorrah in its condemnation of men and their societies, but it allows the innocence of one man to lie unheeded even though it is the instrument of cleansing the village of its villain. Marcello Fonte, who won for Best Actor, has a loving innocence which is matched by that of Lazzaro played by Adriano Tardiolo.
In Alice Rohrwacher’s Best Screenplay winner, Happy as Lazzaro, the protagonist — whose never complaining devotion allows him always to be happy to do the bidding of the village — works “like a dog” for no recompense except for a pat on the head; he is redeemed...
Acclaimed by the audience in its premiere red carpet screening, Dogman by Matteo Garroni is less explicit than Gemorrah in its condemnation of men and their societies, but it allows the innocence of one man to lie unheeded even though it is the instrument of cleansing the village of its villain. Marcello Fonte, who won for Best Actor, has a loving innocence which is matched by that of Lazzaro played by Adriano Tardiolo.
In Alice Rohrwacher’s Best Screenplay winner, Happy as Lazzaro, the protagonist — whose never complaining devotion allows him always to be happy to do the bidding of the village — works “like a dog” for no recompense except for a pat on the head; he is redeemed...
- 5/24/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Modern Films takes UK rights to Cannes Competition title.
Alice Rohrwacher’s 2018 Cannes Competition title Happy As Lazzaro has scored a UK distribution deal with Eve Gabereau’s Modern Films.
The film won Cannes’ screenplay prize for writer-director Rohrwacher (in a tie with Jafar Panahi and Nader Saeivar for 3 Faces).
Starring Adriano Tardiolo, Luca Chikovani, Alba Rohrwacher and Agnese Graziani, the Italian-language drama is about a young peasant assumed, in his isolated village, to be simple-minded, and a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. Screen’s review described it as ”a delirious brew of modernism, folktale and fabulist invention”.
Netflix...
Alice Rohrwacher’s 2018 Cannes Competition title Happy As Lazzaro has scored a UK distribution deal with Eve Gabereau’s Modern Films.
The film won Cannes’ screenplay prize for writer-director Rohrwacher (in a tie with Jafar Panahi and Nader Saeivar for 3 Faces).
Starring Adriano Tardiolo, Luca Chikovani, Alba Rohrwacher and Agnese Graziani, the Italian-language drama is about a young peasant assumed, in his isolated village, to be simple-minded, and a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. Screen’s review described it as ”a delirious brew of modernism, folktale and fabulist invention”.
Netflix...
- 5/24/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
The streaming company has acquired Alice Rohrwacher’s magic-realist tale and Lukas Dhont’s transgender drama for North and Latin America.
Netflix has acquired Cannes festival prize winners Happy As Lazzaro and Girl for North America and Latin America.
Happy As Lazzaro premiered in Competition at the festival and won the best screenplay award for writer-director Alice Rohrwacher (in a tie with Jafar Panahi and Nader Saeivar for 3 Faces).
Starring Adriano Tardiolo, Luca Chikovani, Alba Rohrwacher and Agnese Graziani, the Italian-language drama is about a young peasant assumed, in his isolated village, to be simple-minded, and a young nobleman cursed by his imagination.
Netflix has acquired Cannes festival prize winners Happy As Lazzaro and Girl for North America and Latin America.
Happy As Lazzaro premiered in Competition at the festival and won the best screenplay award for writer-director Alice Rohrwacher (in a tie with Jafar Panahi and Nader Saeivar for 3 Faces).
Starring Adriano Tardiolo, Luca Chikovani, Alba Rohrwacher and Agnese Graziani, the Italian-language drama is about a young peasant assumed, in his isolated village, to be simple-minded, and a young nobleman cursed by his imagination.
- 5/20/2018
- by John Hazelton
- ScreenDaily
Netflix has bought North American and Latin American rights to a pair of awards winners at the Cannes Film Festival — “Happy as Lazzaro” and “Girl.”
The streaming service made the announcement Saturday, the closing day of the 71st edition of the world’s most glamorous film festival. The festival created a stir in April, by announcing that Netflix movies wouldn’t be eligible for in-competition slots — which prompted Netflix to pull all of its titles for consideration, including out-of-competition screenings.
Variety reported on May 7, the day before the festival opened, that Netflix executives had expressed interest in acquiring Asghar Farhadi’s “Everybody Knows,” the opening night film. On May 11, Netflix closed a deal for the animated robot movie “Next Gen” at Cannes. The deals for “Happy as Lazzaro” and “Girl” were handled by The Match Factory.
“Happy as Lazzaro” premiered in competition and was awarded best screenplay for Alice Rohrwacher...
The streaming service made the announcement Saturday, the closing day of the 71st edition of the world’s most glamorous film festival. The festival created a stir in April, by announcing that Netflix movies wouldn’t be eligible for in-competition slots — which prompted Netflix to pull all of its titles for consideration, including out-of-competition screenings.
Variety reported on May 7, the day before the festival opened, that Netflix executives had expressed interest in acquiring Asghar Farhadi’s “Everybody Knows,” the opening night film. On May 11, Netflix closed a deal for the animated robot movie “Next Gen” at Cannes. The deals for “Happy as Lazzaro” and “Girl” were handled by The Match Factory.
“Happy as Lazzaro” premiered in competition and was awarded best screenplay for Alice Rohrwacher...
- 5/19/2018
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
Netflix has acquired Cannes Film Festival award winners “Happy as Lazzaro” and “Girl.”
Just ahead of Cannes, the streaming service had closed a $30 million worldwide deal for the animated film “Next Gen.”
Below are the official descriptions and all of the relevant details for Netflix’s newest acquisitions and the latest Cannes sales.
Also Read: 'Shoplifters' Wins Palme d'Or at 2018 Cannes Film Festival
“Happy as Lazzaro” (pictured above)
Alice Rohrwacher was awarded Best Screenplay for “Happy as Lazzaro” (in a tie with Nader Saeivar for ‘3 Faces”)
Synopsis: This is the tale of a meeting between Lazzaro, a young peasant so good that he is often mistaken for simple-minded, and Tancredi, a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. Life in their isolated pastoral village Inviolata is dominated by the terrible Marchesa Alfonsina de Luna, the queen of cigarettes. A loyal bond is sealed when Tancredi asks Lazzaro to help him orchestrate his own kidnapping.
Just ahead of Cannes, the streaming service had closed a $30 million worldwide deal for the animated film “Next Gen.”
Below are the official descriptions and all of the relevant details for Netflix’s newest acquisitions and the latest Cannes sales.
Also Read: 'Shoplifters' Wins Palme d'Or at 2018 Cannes Film Festival
“Happy as Lazzaro” (pictured above)
Alice Rohrwacher was awarded Best Screenplay for “Happy as Lazzaro” (in a tie with Nader Saeivar for ‘3 Faces”)
Synopsis: This is the tale of a meeting between Lazzaro, a young peasant so good that he is often mistaken for simple-minded, and Tancredi, a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. Life in their isolated pastoral village Inviolata is dominated by the terrible Marchesa Alfonsina de Luna, the queen of cigarettes. A loyal bond is sealed when Tancredi asks Lazzaro to help him orchestrate his own kidnapping.
- 5/19/2018
- by Tony Maglio
- The Wrap
Netflix has acquired the rights to Cannes Film Festival award-winners Happy As Lazzaro and Girl for North America and Latin America.
Happy as Lazzaro premiered in competition and was awarded Best Screenplay for Alice Rohrwacher. The Camera d’Or for best first film was awarded to Lukas Dhont for Girl, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival and was awarded Best Actor for Victor Polster,
Happy as Lazzaro is the tale of a meeting between Lazzaro, a young peasant so good that he is often mistaken for simple-minded, and Tancredi, a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. Life in their isolated pastoral village Inviolata is dominated by the terrible Marchesa Alfonsina de Luna, the queen of cigarettes. A loyal bond is sealed when Tancredi asks Lazzaro to help him orchestrate his own kidnapping. This strange and improbable alliance is a revelation for Lazzaro. A friendship so...
Happy as Lazzaro premiered in competition and was awarded Best Screenplay for Alice Rohrwacher. The Camera d’Or for best first film was awarded to Lukas Dhont for Girl, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival and was awarded Best Actor for Victor Polster,
Happy as Lazzaro is the tale of a meeting between Lazzaro, a young peasant so good that he is often mistaken for simple-minded, and Tancredi, a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. Life in their isolated pastoral village Inviolata is dominated by the terrible Marchesa Alfonsina de Luna, the queen of cigarettes. A loyal bond is sealed when Tancredi asks Lazzaro to help him orchestrate his own kidnapping. This strange and improbable alliance is a revelation for Lazzaro. A friendship so...
- 5/19/2018
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
The films of Alice Rohrwacher have always been rich with the sensory magic of growing up, but that atmosphere has, up to this point, been enhanced with the knowledge that puberty was approaching, just out of sight, with all the subtlety of a B52 bomber. With her newest, Lazarro Felice, she has largely forgone that period of adolescence, while somehow not forgoing that sense of everyday magic. What emerges is not simply a next step in her oeuvre and creative growth but a fully formed expression of her virtuosic talents.
We shouldn’t make such grand gestures, however, without clarifying that none of this would have been possible — at least not in such a realized way — without the symbiotic artistic partnership she has shared with Hélène Louvart, cinematographer on all of her features to date. Working with gorgeous super 16 (complete with rounded screen corners and glorious imperfections on the peripheries...
We shouldn’t make such grand gestures, however, without clarifying that none of this would have been possible — at least not in such a realized way — without the symbiotic artistic partnership she has shared with Hélène Louvart, cinematographer on all of her features to date. Working with gorgeous super 16 (complete with rounded screen corners and glorious imperfections on the peripheries...
- 5/17/2018
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
The first hour of “Happy as Lazzaro” is a naturalistic look at rustic life in the Italian countryside, where noblemen and peasants live a solitary existence seemingly out of time. The next half shifts the setting to the city, but more importantly, pitches the story in a strange, supernatural direction that transforms the entire drama into a fascinating allegorical mystery.
Director Alice Rohrwacher’s third feature revisits some of the themes she mined in “The Wonders” about the dissolution of the pastoral world under the pressures of modernity, but she pushes that fixation in a metaphorical direction. At times that takes the loose narrative in a heavy-handed direction, but Rohrwacher shows such commitment to her peculiar storyline — while the cast imbues the stranger twists with an undercurrent of credibility — that the movie lulls you into its unpredictable rhythms, and a striking poetry creeps into the material, finally overtaking it.
At first,...
Director Alice Rohrwacher’s third feature revisits some of the themes she mined in “The Wonders” about the dissolution of the pastoral world under the pressures of modernity, but she pushes that fixation in a metaphorical direction. At times that takes the loose narrative in a heavy-handed direction, but Rohrwacher shows such commitment to her peculiar storyline — while the cast imbues the stranger twists with an undercurrent of credibility — that the movie lulls you into its unpredictable rhythms, and a striking poetry creeps into the material, finally overtaking it.
At first,...
- 5/13/2018
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Nothing much makes sense in “Happy as Lazzaro,” until a stunning mid-film pivot that shakes time and space and snaps it all together, its world emerging from the disturbance as senseless again — but in a completely different, all too recognizable way. The third and most richly strange feature yet from Italian writer-director Alice Rohrwacher, this beautifully rendered tangram of a movie sees her pushing her recurring fascination with fables to its most literal (and literate) degree. Earthy folkloric storytelling, time-traveling magical realism and fact-inspired social drama are fused in its tale of a rural innocent defying life’s certainties to bear witness to two separate eras of social and economic exploitation. The result is a slow but bewitching burn that rewards viewers’ patience with humor and uncanny grace, sealing Rohrwacher’s status — following her 2014 Cannes Grand Prix winner “The Wonders” — as a truly distinctive European major.
A substantial prize at...
A substantial prize at...
- 5/13/2018
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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