A terrorism alert freezes Italy for twenty-four hours. We have to go home and stay there. The lockdown lightning catches a number of people in the middle of their life. Ida (Isabella Ragonese) is leaving Rome to reach her new flame Luca (Matteo Martari) in Veneto, but she is forced to return home. They will spend their “romantic getaway” on their cell phones. Marcella (Milena Mancini) dumped her husband Sergio (Giordano De Plano) after yet another infidelity. When the lockdown she has just arrived from mutual friend Marco (Vinicio Marchioni), with whom she would like to confide and let off steam. Andrea (Francesco Acquaroli) finds himself with his wife Beatrice (Barbara Esposito): their couple has been disintegrating since they lost their son and it is not clear whether forced cohabitation is an opportunity or a nightmare. Finally there is Anna (Elena Gigliotti), who wrote a script that her actor boyfriend Manfredi (Dario Aita) has not yet deigned to read. Perhaps, now that he is forced to stay with Anna, he will finally.
Day and night by Daniele Vicari is an episodic film that tells a lockdown and was actually filmed during the lockdown of 2020. It is first of all an experiment: the actors made their homes available and turned into individual crews, shooting the scenes at a distance from the director, who followed them and gave them directions through tools that in that period they have become familiar to so many of us, such as video calls and videoconferencing. The same did the director of photography, set designers, costume designers, sound engineers. It can be said that the experiment was successful. Maybe not so much to evoke those months of confinement, but to demonstrate that such a project, however crazy, is possible and that the beloved-hated smart working it can be applied to unsuspected professions, such as the actor or sound engineer.
An important clarification on the anti-covid protocol: the couples who appear together on the scene are made up of relatives: Barbara Esposito and Francesco Acquaroli, Milena Mancini and Vinicio Marchioni, Elena Gigliotti and Dario Vita are couples in real life, “joint” one would have said at the time. And sooner or later, you can’t help but notice the spark between them. Suggestive images of the deserted Rome of spring 2020 that close the film, as well as the musical commentary composed by Teho Teardo. Day and night is available exclusively on RaiPlay.
Day and night
By Daniele Vicari. With Francesco Acquaroli, Dario Aita, Giordano De Plano, Barbara Esposito, Elena Gigliotti, Milena Mancini, Vinicio Marchioni, Matteo Martari, Isabella Ragonese. Italy 2021, 99 ‘. On RaiPlay
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