A film about the future, through the eyes of Italy’s youth who, while not knowing what is yet to come, perhaps already feel it.


Futura is a collective reportage by Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi and Alice Rohrwacher. It explores what boys and girls aged 15 to 20 think about the future through a series of interviews filmed during a long journey across Italy. A portrait of this country as seen through the eyes of a group of teen-agers who speak of the places they live in, of their dreams, expectations, desires and fears.



© 2021 



Pietro Marcello

Pietro Marcello was born in Caserta. He studied painting at the Naples Academy of Fine Arts. Its film Crossing the Line premiered at the Venice Film Festival's Orizzonti section in 2007, and won many accolades. In 2009 he made the feature film The Wolf's Mouth, that went on to win the 27th Torino Film Festival, the Caligari Award and the Teddy Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2011 he directed The Silence of Pelešjan, screened as a special event at the 68th Venice Film Festival. In 2015 he made Lost and Beautiful, screened at the Locarno Film Festival. In 2019 he made Martin Eden, his first feature film, based on the same-titled novel by Jack London. The film won many awards, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor (Luca Marinelli) at the Venice Film Festival and the Platform Prize at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. In 2021 he made For Lucio, a documentary film premiered at the 71st Berlin Film Festival's Berlinale Special section.


Francesco Munzi

Born in Rome, he graduated with a degree in Political Sciences in 1995 and took a diploma in Film Directing from Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in 1998. Saimir, his first feature film, won the "Luigi De Laurentiis" Award for a Debut Film at the 2004 Venice Film Festival. The Rest of the Night, his second feature film, premiered in Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight in 2008, and was subsequently invited to many more festivals around the world. Black Souls, his third feature and an Italian-French production by Rai Cinema, was released in 2014 and premiered at the 71st Venice Film Festival. In 2017 he co-directed The Miracle, an TV series produced by Wildside for Arte and Sky.


Alice Rohrwacher

She was born in Fiesole, in the Tuscany region. She graduated with a degree in Classic Literature from Torino University, and wrote for theater and worked as a musician before approaching filmmaking, initially as a documentary editor. Her first feature, Corpo Celeste, premiered in Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight in 2011, and was then selected for Sundance and several more festivals around the world. Rohrwacher’s second feature, The Wonders, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film. In 2015 she directed De Djess, a short film commissioned by Prada as part of Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales film series that premiered during New York Fashion Week and was also presented at the Venice Film Festival. In 2016 she directed her first opera, a new version of La Traviata for Teatri di Reggio Emilia. Happy as Lazzaro, her third feature film, won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.


2021 – FOR LUCIO, OT: PER LUCIO 


2019 – MARTIN EDEN, OT: MARTIN EDEN


2015 – LOST AND BEAUTIFUL, OT: BELLA E PERDUTA 


2014 – L’UMILE ITALIA (short), OT: L’UMILE ITALIA (short)


2011 – THE SILENCE OF PELESJAN, OT: IL SILENZIO DI PELEŠJAN 


2009 – THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF, OT: LA BOCCA DEL LUPO 


2007 – CROSSING THE LINE, OT: IL PASSAGGIO DELLA LINEA 


2018 – THE MIRACLE (TV series), OT: IL MIRACOLO (TV series)


2016 – ASSALTO AL CIELO, OT: ASSALTO AL CIELO 


2014 – BLACK SOULS, OT: ANIME NERE 


2008 – THE REST OF THE NIGHT, OT: IL RESTO DELLA NOTTE 


2004 – SAIMIR, OT: SAIMIR






2020 – QUATTRO STRADE (short), OT: QUATTRO STRADE (short)


2020 – OMELIA CONTADINA (short), OT: OMELIA CONTADINA (short)


2019 – MY BRILLIANT FRIEND, OT: L’AMICA GENIALE – STORIA DEL NUOVO COGNOME 


2018 – HAPPY AS LAZZARO, OT: LAZZARO FELICE 


2015 – DE DJESS (short), OT: DE DJESS (short)


2014 – THE WONDERS, OT: LE MERAVIGLIE 


2011 – CORPO CELESTE, OT: CORPO CELESTE 




















© 2021 



We met at the end of 2019 because we wanted to make a film together. During our careers we have all been asked to contribute to collective projects by directing an episode of an anthology film.











But to direct a single episode can be frustrating if you're looking for a collective experience and you want to truly share it with other directors. To us, working together mainly means to observe the work of each other.

That's why, since the beginning, we wanted to make a truly collective work, where the idea of collectiveness was at the service of a whole project. We wanted variety to stem not from the single episode, but from the multiplicity of the direction – a form of cinema that was alive in the past, but is rarely practiced today.

Futura was born out of this desire, a shared work that aims to give a representation of the Italian youth, and paint a tableau of our country through their eyes and voices. It is a "film of feelings" which uses adolescents as a mirror for us adults. Futura is not an observational film and it only partially falls in the wide range of the Cinema of Reality. It is a reportage in its noblest form. While we were making it, we put ourselves at the service of the stories we were telling- we took off the director's cap and put on the witness' cap. We were merely executioners who wanted to provide a filmed document ready to be filed in a sort of archive of contemporary history. Then, when we edited the film, we dug in the archive and brought the images to light again. At that point we were unbiased enough to create a relationship between the footage and the present.

When we made Futura we chose to use basic reportage methodology; we draw inspiration from the skillful documentary-making of the likes of Nuto Revelli, and from the books by Stefano Laffi. Since the beginning, the story of this film has been indissolubly linked to his work and research on juvenile cultures.

To define our work methodology we looked at great Italian television reportages from the Sixties and Seventies, made by directors like Soldati, Comencini and Rossellini. Those reportages represent still today a fundamental testimony, a tool that helps us read our history, past and future. We had no preliminary thesis to follow, and soon our journalistic attitude turned into curiosity for the lives of others, the sheer pleasure of discovering collectivity.

We started by writing down together a set of questions that we wanted to ask boys and girls from fifteen to twenty years of age. We improved and modified this questionnaire along the way, as the youngsters we met spontaneously suggested to us topics that were closer to them. We have picked a wide age range that encompasses a time in life ruled by uncertainty, a time when people think about what they will become, hence their future. By that age, many young people are already adults, and as many are still children, depending on their background, roots, environment and experiences.

We opted for a light shooting schedule that allowed us to brush against situations and bump across stories. We turned down the observational film's long shooting schedule in favor of a wide tableau made of images that are ready to become memory. To us, the greatest value of this film lies in its ability to escape the dynamics of fast consumption and to stand the test of time as a testimony to its age. 

How do you tell about these boys and girls? By giving them the opportunity to talk about themselves, to freely express themselves, and watch them while they are creating their own storytelling.

In a way, this is a "superficial" film. It does not try to simulate a depth of focus that would be like a blackmail. It moves on the surface of youth. The film's storytelling is always collective, as opposed to a more common individualist style, and it unspools through a string of episodes, stories and movements inside the film.

To empower and reinforce this collectiveness, we chose to interview boys and girls who knew each other (friends, groups from the same school or sharing common experiences), so that they were more likely to spontaneously discuss and debate the topics we asked them about. This allowed us filmmakers to take a step back and give the youngsters the maximum freedom to make their own storytelling.




© 2021 





Written and directed by: Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi and Alice Rohrwacher

Editor: Aline Hervé

Director of Photography: Ilyà Sapeha

1st Assistant Director: Tiziana Poli

Story Contributor: Stefano Laffi

Executive Producer: Alessio Lazzareschi

General Manager: Giulia Moretti

Production Coordinator: Lucia Santarelli

2nd Assistant Director: Maria Giménez Cavallo

Color correction: Andrea Maguolo

Sound Editor: Marta Billingsley

Production Companies: Avventurosa with Rai Cinema

Original Music: Marco Messina and Sacha Ricci




© 2021 





Original title: Futura

International title: Futura

Duration: 110 min

Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1

Format: 2K

Sound: 5.1

Year: 2021

Original language: Italian

Country of production: Italy

Production Company: Avventurosa

Co-production Company: Rai Cinema

With the support of: MIC - Direzione Generale Cinema e Audiovisivo, Sardegna Film Commission - Fondo Location Scouting, POR FESR 2014/2020 Regione del Veneto, Regione Lazio - Regional Cinema and Audiovisual Fund



© 2021 





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