Giulio Donato’s ‘Labyrinths,’ Premiering in Venice, Debuts Clip

Giulio Donato‘s “Labyrinths,” which plays in an Out of Competition slot at Venice Days, an independent sidebar to the Venice Film Festival, has debuted a first clip. Open Reel is handling international sales.

The film centers on Francesco, an introverted guy, born in a village surrounded by nature in the mountains of Calabria. He grows up with Mimmo, his best friend, with whom he shares everything until adolescence. One day he finds a book, which becomes almost a magical object that will change the course of his life.

Francesco has a dream and he will find the courage to pursue it against everything and everyone: not only the society around him, that makes him feel trapped in a labyrinth of unwritten psychological and social rules, but also against Mimmo.

In a statement, the director said: “For ‘Labyrinths’ my intention was to start from reality and create, by filming, something new. I decided to place the story halfway between reality and fiction, maintaining this approach in all aspects of the film. For this reason, I have chosen to work on a double register: on the one hand an ultra-realistic staging, which aims to make the public almost forget being in front of a film, preserving the natural uncertainty of reality; on the other hand, a more designed and aesthetic system, in the representation of Francesco’s dreams.

“So, I tried not to alter the sets, to shoot much handheld, to direct the actors by combining their experiences with those of their characters, creating scenes and dialogues together; and in parallel, for the dream moments, I opted for the use of subjective, more stable shots, an immersive sound combined with the voiceover of the lead. I wanted to make these two paths coexist, giving the film unity and narrative coherence, but creating an obvious stylistic distance. The intent was to amplify the difference between the two worlds and the two visions of reality.”

The cast includes Francesco Grillo, Simone Iorgi, Stella Mastrantonio, Finn Ronsdorf, Davide Fasano, Antonio Gerardi and Massimo De Santis.

The producer is Francesco Cimpanelli for Life Cinema. The executive producer is Giulio Donato.