Mimmo Calopresti Movies
- 2007
Three aspiring moviemakers unexpectedly land a big break and their hometown comes out to celebrate in this warm comedy-drama. Gabriele (Paolo Briguglia), Nicola (Lele Nucera) and Marco (Lorenzo Di Ciaccia) are three young men growing up in Diamante, a small town in the Calabria region of Southern Italy where life moves at its own pace and not much happens. Gabriele, Nicola and Marco are serious film fans who have befriended the town's most famous citizen, Neri (Diego Abatantuono), a well known director waiting out a creative block who offers the boys advice on their dreams of working in the film industry. Gabriele has written a script based on the youthful experiences of his Aunt Caterina (Lucia Ragni), and he and his pals want to go to Rome in hopes of getting it made into a major motion picture. Neri is dubious, but introduces the boys to Francesco (Mimmo Calopresti), a friend and well-known actor who lives in the Eternal City. Francesco gets Gabriele, Nicola and Marco into a party thrown by an industry bigwig, and they're introduced to Amelie (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), Francesco's former wife who is currently Gerard Depardieu's significant other. In a remarkable stroke of luck, Amelie agrees to pass Gabriele's screenplay along to Depardieu, and the famed French actor agrees to appear in the film, guaranteeing the project a green light. Overjoyed, Gabriele, Nicola and Marco invite their new colleagues back to Diamante, where they want to shoot the picture, for a celebratory feast, and the stars get a close-up look at how the other half lives. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Diego Abatantuono, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, (more)
- 2006
Where is Auschwitz? director Mimmo Calopresti draws on hundreds of hours of footage originally gathered by Steven Spielberg's USC Shoah Foundation to craft a decidedly personal study of the suffering endured by nine Italian Jews deported to Auschwitz during the Holocaust. From then-thirteen year-old Liliana Segre's failed attempt to escape across the Swiss border with her father to Schlomo Venzia's grim assignment at the crematoriums, Settima Spizzichino's horrific suffering at the hands of Josef Mengele, and Arminio Wachsberger's unfathomable loss, these are the kind of stories that transform a long-ago historic tragedy into an intensely personal reminder of the grisly fate that can befall mankind if we refuse to learn from our past mistakes. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 2003
Mimmo Calopresti directs and stars in the existential drama La Felicita Non Costa Niente (Happiness Costs Nothing). Calopresti stars as Sergio, a successful architect who is suddenly afflicted with a malaise. Haunted by the ghost of a co-worker, Sergio takes a mistress, offends his best friends, refuses to acknowledge guidance from his doctor, and eventually loses everything. He has a failed relationship with a woman named Sara (Francesca Neri). Only after losing it all does Sergio find something worthwhile in life. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mimmo Calopresti, Vincent Perez, (more)
- 2001
A young man who was an outcast in his own family finds himself embraced by another, with troubling results, in this drama based on a novel by Italo Svevo. Zeno (Fabrizo Rongione) is the son of a wealthy family whose father (Toni Bertorelli) did not place much faith in the young man's abilities; during their final moments together, the father's parting gesture was a literal slap in the face, and as a condition of his father's last will and testament, Zeno will not receive his share of the family fortune until he's shown the ability to hold down a job for an entire year. Zeno finds employment at an art gallery owned by Giovanni Malfenti (Mimmo Calopresti), a longtime friend of the family, and Giovanni grows fond enough of Zeno that he brings him home to meet his four daughters. Shy Zeno soon becomes infatuated with Giovanni's oldest daughter Ada (Chiara Mastroianni), but when he fails to make the first move, Ada does it for him, and before long she's talked Zeno into her bed. But Ada quickly loses interest in Zeno, and the process begins to repeat itself as Alberta (Claudia Coli), the next-oldest of the Malfenti sisters, sets her sights on the young man, who is drawn into a strange web of jealousy and competition among the various members of the family. Le Parole Di Mio Padre was screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival as part of the Un Certain Regard series. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fabrizio Rongione, Chiara Mastroianni, (more)
- 2000
Mimmo Calopresti directs this subtle coming-of-age drama about the prejudices between the north and the south of Italy. Rosario (Michele Raso) is from Calabria in the Italian deep south. Because of the fact that his father is in jail and his mother was rubbed out in a mob hit, he has grown into a fiercely proud and self-sufficient lad. Matteo (Paola Cirio), on the other hand, is a mopey rich kid, the son of successful Turin businessman Luigi (Silvio Orlando). An unlikely string of coincidences leads to Luigi stumbling upon Rosario, who proves to be a distant relative. He arranges for his old friend Don Lorenzo to take in the orphaned waif and encourages him to hang out with Matteo. Soon, as Luigi's prejudice against southerners becomes more and more apparent, Matteo and Rosario become fast friends. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Former documentary filmmaker Mimmo Calopresti (The Second Time) made this Italian-French romantic drama that focuses on fragile and phobic 30-year-old Angela (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi). She should have a comfortable life, yet she sinks into solitude, hungers for love, can't communicate with her wealthy mother (Daria Nicolodi), and makes decisions based on various colors and numbers. Her conversations with her mother are strained and formal, so she expresses her barren existence during visits to her psychoanalyst (Calopresti), who has problems of his own. A meeting with divorced cello teacher Marco (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) sets Angela veering in another direction, one with obsessive overtones. The absent-minded Marco has his own emotional needs, and his passivity is seen in contrast to his energetic teenage daughter Malvi (Emanuela Macchniz). Making anonymous overtures to Marco, Angela sends him fragments of Japanese love poems, but he simply thinks one of his students is responsible for the notes. After an argument with her analyst upsets her, Angela's anxieties increase. She checks herself into a psychiatric clinic where she finds a friend in fellow patient Sara (Marina Confalone). Indications during a later encounter with Marco suggest the two might indeed find a connection. Once down as a producer of this film, Gerard Depardieu instead did only a brief cameo appearance in the role of a lawyer. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, (more)
- 1995
A former terrorist from the early 1970s, who has totally suppressed the memory of the night in which she almost executed a man; encounters her intended victim a few years after the crime was committed. He, who wound up with a bullet lodged in his skull has never forgotten her, and so begins a complex, compelling Italian psychological drama that does not provide any simplistic answers to a situation that is difficult for both parties. The woman, Lisa Venturi was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to serve a 30-year sentence. Though she has only been in prison 12 years, she is given a chance to do work release during the day. It is on her way to work that she runs into Professor Sajevo, the man she tried to kill. He shows some interest in her, but she has no idea why. Soon the meetings become a strange unspoken ritual. Every day on her way to work, he manages to block her way. Finally she begins thinking he wants to court her and so begins fabricating a perfectly normal life. He meekly seems to buy every word, but eventually, he tells her the truth. Lisa is so deeply upset at having to face what she so carefully tried to hide from herself that she gives up her job and returns to the prison so she will not have to face him. Unfortunately, it is unavoidable, as by then both of them are pulled inexorably towards more communication about the situation and the ideology that threw them together in the first place. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
