06/09/2005

"It's only a crush!" yells Olga to her best friend. An illusion, a hope that lies beneath a woman's despair, on the first day of her abandonment, a day that seems endless.

Taken from the novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante, I giorni dell'abbandono tells the story of Olga (Margherita Buy), a woman in her forties living a quiet daily life until the day her husband (Luca Zingaretti) suddenly leaves her for a young woman. He is not a monster, only a man who stopped loving his wife. After a period of stupor and dibelief, Olga, humiliated, left alone with her two children, falls into distress and half madness.

Roberto Faenza, a Turinese in his sixties, has already made twelve films, many of which were directly inspired by literature. He is now presenting in competition at the Venice Film Festival a "thriller of the mind", the mind of the main character, performed by a Margherita Buy expresseing with great passion a women's terrible path to "rebirth".
The film was coldly welcomed by the press attending its screening, probably due to a script that is not consistently fluent (also written by Faenza) and a direction not always lively. But the film, which is to be released on Italian screens on September 16th, will find its public, an audience that is not so young and mainly feminine.

Produced by Elda Ferri for Jean Vigò and Medusa, "I giorni dell'abbandono was shot in Turin in 8 weeks and cost 4,2 million euros "A relatively low budget, however high in terms of pre-sales. We are calm since the film is entirely covered by TV sales", says Ferri. " It's an Italian story but the theme is universal, it could be a success abroad". Also in the cast, the Serbian musician Goran Bregovic, who also composed the sound track.

(Translated from Italian)