ITALY

ODORE DI PIOGGIA

1989 – color – 94’

Direction: Nico Cirasola

Screenplay: Nico Cirasola, Tommaso Di Ciaula with the collaboration by Lucia Diroma, Vito Riviello

Cinematography: Lorenzo Fiore

Editing: Alessandra Consoli

 Set design: Elia Canestrari

Music: Nino Lepore

Costumes: Elia Canestrari

Cast: Totò Onnis (Acchiappamosche), Agnete Vossgard (Inge), Claudia Griesmayer (Blue Angel), Renzo Arbore (Barber Blues), Nico Cirasola (Giaguaro), Vito Riviello (Voice), Mario Mancini (Father), Frank Lino (Rocco), Teodosio Barresi (Colonel), Grazia Daddario (Mother), Claudia e Dionisia Cirasola (Babies)

Producer: Nico Cirasola

Production: Mediterranea Film

Distibution: D.A.C. – Distributori Audiovisivi Consorzianti

synopsis

In a southern region of a South with neither tears nor guns, Totò has no reason to wake up early in the morning. Besieged by his stationmaster father who would like him to be the “chosen stationmaster,” Totò spends his nights writing poems to find them missing when he wakes up because his mother “tidied up his room.” One fine day, he comes across a mountain of wreckage where underneath lies an old Guzzi 500 with some gasoline in the tank. There is a scent of rain in the air, something is changing on the parched expanses of the Murgia. A Blue Angel, occupied in filming a commercial, will enter Totò’s life instilling in him the doubt that his life is a nightmare and offering him hope that by continuing to sleep, his life can become a dream.

critical note

“Excellently made film.” (Jean A. Gili, Parisscope)

“(…) among the most beautiful love scenes seen in young Italian cinema.” (P. Bernaglione, Il Manifesto)

“Deliberately disconnected in its search for an ironic expressive harmony, which nonetheless finds its culmination in Lorenzo Fiore’s splendid cinematography, this unusual film lyrically caresses the horizontal line where the glossy sky and the land of the South merge (…).” (Giovanna Grassi, Il Corriere della Sera)

festivals & awards

1989 Annecy Italia Cinema: Special Jury Prize

1989 Un Mare di Cinema, Lipari:  Best Debut Director

1989 Festival Internazionale di Salerno: Rossellini Trophy

1990 Tróia Festival Internacional de Cinema

1991 Festival di Bastia:  Audience Award

1991 International Comedy Film Festival, Torremolinos: Second Place in the Audience Award