ENEA - Official Still - courtesy La biennale di Venezia
#Venezia80 - Competition
Enea
Pietro Castellitto
Enea, Aeneas, pursues the myth that his name bears. He does it to feel alive in a dead and decadent age. He does it in the company of Valentino, a newly christened aviator. Together with the drug dealing and the parties, the two boys share their youth. Lifelong friends, victims and perpetrators of a corrupt world, but moved by an incorruptible vitality. Beyond the boundaries of the rules, on the other side of morality, there’s an ocean of humanity and symbols to discover. Enea and Valentino will soar over it to the furthest extremes. But the drugs and the underworld are the invisible shadow of a story that speaks of something else: a melancholy father, a brother who has conflicts at school, a mother defeated by love and a beautiful girl, a happy ending and a happy death, a palm tree falling on a world made of glass. It is between the cracks of everyday life that Enea and Valentino’s adventure gradually finds reprieve. An adventure that may seem criminal to others, but which for them is, and will be first and foremost, an adventure of friendship and love.
Main Cast
Pietro Castellitto, Giorgio Quarzo Guarascio, Benedetta Porcaroli, Chiara Noschese, Giorgio Montanini, Adamo Dionisi, Matteo Branciamore, Cesare Castellitto and with Sergio Castellitto
Pietro Castellitto and Benedetta Porcaroli
"Enea is a gangster movie without the gangster parts. A genre story without a genre. The criminal element runs silently on a hidden track and suddenly creeps into the cracks of everyday relationships, overwhelming the unsuspecting protagonists. The idea was to create a narrative in which the point of view of the spectator corresponds to the perspective of those who endure drug trafficking: at one point you can suddenly win, then you can suddenly die, and no one will ever know why. The protagonists are moved by the mystery of youth. They do what they do neither for money nor for power. But perhaps for vitality, to put their hearts to the test, to figure to what extent they can feel alive today, at the dawn of this new millennium saturated with wars that are only told and attacks that are only seen."
Director's Statement
Pietro Castellitto
ASAC -Giorgio Zucchiatti - courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
Pietro Castellito, Benedetta Porcaroli and Giorgio Quarzo Guarascio
ASAC -Giorgio Zucchiatti - courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
Sergio Castellitto and Margaret Mazzantini
ASAC -Giorgio Zucchiatti - courtesy La Biennale di Venezia