Diciannove (Previously Unreleased)

A playful and atmospheric character study of a restless young adult, co-produced by Luca Guadagnino.

Nineteen-year-old Leonardo (Manfredi Marini) wants nothing more than to leave Palermo and his domineering mother behind. With few alternatives, he follows his older, party-loving sister to London to study business administration. But he soon retraces his steps, returns to Italy, and becomes increasingly entangled in his own uncertainties. On impulse, he decides to study classical Italian literature in Siena. Yet the somewhat stubborn Leonardo struggles to adapt and barely connects with his housemates. He isolates himself in his room, grumbling that his professor completely misunderstands Dante. Later, he moves to Turin, where his ideas about literature and authorship become increasingly rigid.

Writer-director Giovanni Tortorici has said that Diciannove (which means “Nineteen”) stays very close to his own life. With deep feeling and a fresh style, he captures the messy, uncertain nature of growing up. Unlike Leonardo, Tortorici studied film in Turin, which led to a job as an assistant director for Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name, Queer). Guadagnino was so impressed by the script about this slightly neurotic and lonely antihero that he decided to produce Tortorici’s debut feature, which was shot on luminous 35mm film.

Giovanni Tortorici (Palermo, 1996) worked as a trainee assistant director on the set of Guadagnino’s television series We Are Who We Are. He continued collaborating with Guadagnino as a cinematographer and assistant director on short films and music videos. Diciannove is his first feature film and premiered at the Venice Film Festival.