«I find it incredible that in Turin it can be projected in such a sloppy and shoddy way. Avoid seeing another Ferragosto here at the Ambrosio.” The director Paolo Virzì says it – and writes it. The shopkeeper Sergio Troiano replies promptly: “And I’m suing you.”
It’s a shame that, right at the moment of the closing debate, always loved by every good cinephile of our times, there was no discussion of the stories of the protagonists of the sequel to Ferie d’agosto, nor of cuts to the direction or more or less close-ups and editing. less “functional”. With the lights turned back on and the credits still playing, in fact, the Tuscan director took the floor to lash out against the quality of the projection, harshly criticizing the quality of the projectors in the historic theater on Corso Vittorio Emanuele: «It’s incredible – he blurted out – how Turin you can witness a show like this. Once upon a time, this was a beautiful cinema and now who knows what has happened. Now let everyone refund you the cost of the ticket. I will return to Turin to talk about my film: I won’t do it here, but in another cinema.”
The story continues with increasingly grotesque tones. After leaving the room, the two-time director of the Torino Film Festival stops in the elegant entrance and begins to write with a marker on the official poster: «Go and see the film elsewhere». Someone points out to him that ultimately the quality of vision hasn’t suffered that much (perhaps due to the 2K projectors which will soon be modernised), but he continues to write: “The projection is cancelled”.
The third part of a “midwinter comedy” ends with the most classic of the main scenes. Virzì goes out into the street and continues to complain in front of a crowd of spectators at the Ambrosio about the quality that is «not worthy», in his opinion, of a cinema in the center of Turin, «I would understand it was a theater in the suburbs…». And it is right there that he meets – literally face to face – Sergio Troiano, warned shortly before that anything was happening in his cinema. The meeting ends with a bit of tension and the “third half” of the film leaves everyone speechless.
Troiano only commented on what happened today, still in disbelief but determined: «As an exhibitor who has always believed in Italian cinema, I am sorry. In recent months I have hosted authors such as Bellocchio, Cortellesi, Ramazzotti, Garrone and many others, and each of them will be able to tell you about the pleasant experience they had with us.” So, why this reaction? “It wasn’t pleasant to live through, I admit, but from this point on, only my lawyers will be able to talk about the merits, because I intend to sue the director for defamation.” Furthermore, according to the owner, Virzì would have physically confronted him in a threatening way (“He almost seemed to be in an altered state”), he would have talked about a dirty glass being responsible for the bad projection – something which, according to the manager, on a 35 meter beam of light at a thousand watts it wouldn’t have made an impact anyway – and he would also have asked the production company 01 to remove the film from the theater.
Finally, Troiano adds a couple of details: «I can say that in agreement with the distribution I dismantled the film, as explicitly requested by Virzì. In this regard, I would like to point out that at the evening with us there were 128 paying spectators in my cinema, approximately five times the number of other cinemas in Turin”. And the public? «If something went wrong, but I’m not aware of it, I’m especially sorry for them. But no one asked for a refund of the ticket. I also thank them for this.”