Francesca Comencini’s ‘The Time It Takes’ Boarded by Charades

Charades has taken international sales rights to “Il tempo che ci vuole” (The Time It Takes), directed by Francesca Comencini. The film will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the out of competition section.

“The Time It Takes” will be released in Italian theaters on Sept. 26 through 01 Distribution.

The film centers on a devoted father working in the film industry, who shares a deep bond with his young daughter. Together, they discover the magical world of childhood through the daughter’s eyes and the “Pinocchio” set he’s working on, “where chaos meets fantasy.”

The child becomes a young woman, and the state of enchanted limbo between father and daughter vanishes. She realizes that her childhood is slipping away, giving way to adolescence. The young woman starts taking drugs while hiding the truth from her father. Refusing to ignore the situation, the father confronts his daughter and decides to take her to Paris in a last-ditch attempt to save their bond and bring her back to herself.

“The Time It Takes” pays homage to the director’s father Luigi Comencini – the Italian master who made Oscar-nominated Cinema Italiano classic “Bread, Love and Dreams,” with Gina Lollobrigida and Vittorio De Sica.

In a statement, Francesca Comencini said: “This film is a very personal tale of moments with my father that emerged from memories and remained vivid and intact in my mind. A personal tale that I believe, however, finds the right distance in the fact that between father and daughter there is always cinema as a passion, a life choice, a way of being in the world. All around, the years of political murders, social revolutions, and the appearance of drugs, which turned the life of an entire generation upside down.”

The film is produced by Marco Bellocchio and Simone Gattoni of Kavac and Sylvie Pialat of Les Films du Worso. It stars Fabrizio Gifuni and Romana Maggiora Vergano.

During the festival, the film’s production designer, Paola Comencini – the director’s sister – will receive the Campari Passion for Film Award, dedicated to film industry figures who, along with the director, contribute to excellence in creating cinematic art.

The Venice statement described “The Time It Takes” as “a film in which the set design is not only a creative and accurate work but an incredible emotional journey.”

The ceremony for the award to Paola Comencini will take place on Friday in the Palazzo del Cinema at 9.30 p.m., before the screening of “The Time It Takes.”