Italy
Franco Bernini
The story of a young, middle-class therapist (Francesca Neri) who suspects that one of her patients (Claudio Amendola) may have been involved in planting the bomb which killed her younger sister, Le mani forti (The Gray Zone) is a thriller with a dark philosophical undertone.
"Any state has a part of it which operates in the shadows. Can we control it? What happens when the state turns against its own citizens?" These are the questions director Franco Bernini poses in his debut feature.
A well-known screenwriter, Bernini took the leap into directing because "the story was so close to me, so personal." His producer Domenico Procacci (whose previous credits include Bad Boy Bubby and Nulla ci puo' fermare) had few problems raising the $2 million budget. "It's never easy," Procacci chuckles, "but in this case the script was so good."
Le mani forti has already opened in Italy. Procacci acknowledges that outside the major cities, "the box-office has been very modest." The majority of Italian cinemagoers simply don't want to see Italian films, he suggests. Prospects abroad aren't more encouraging. "We haven't got a very good reputation. Everybody knows that [Italy] made fantastic films in the 1950s and 1960s, but in the last couple of decades things have slipped."
Procacci believes that Italian directors "should go closer to the edge, and take greater risks". This is precisely what Franco Bernini does in Le mani forti, tackling a still sensitive episode in Italian history. "But it's not just an Italian story," Bernini points out, "secret services in other countries have done the same thing."
Bernini has two more projects on the boil, one is a story about the last days of the Roman Empire, the other a 17th century epic set during the Catholic/ Calvinist war. "I'd like to direct them myself," he admits, "but if I find somebody sensitive enough about what I am trying to do, I won't mind only being the writer." Geoffrey Macnab
Prod co: Fandango-Achab in collaboration with Mediaset
Prod: Domenico Procacci
Dir: Franco Bernini
Scr: Franco Bernini, Maura Nuccetell
Ph: Paolo Carnera
Cos: Cinzia Lucchetti
Ed: Esmeralda Calabria
Cast: Francesca Neri, Claudio Amendola, Enzo Decaro
Running time: 94 mins
Int sales: IntraFilms.