La casa degli sguardi, based on the award-winning debut novel by Daniele Mencarelli, will be released in theatres by Lucky Red on April 10. This marks the feature film debut for Luca Zingaretti, who has previously directed episodes of Inspector Montalbano for TV. The film, which premiered at the last Rome FilmFest in the Grand Public section, was also the focus of a meeting at the Petruzzelli Theatre in Bari during Bif&st. "When I came across Mencarelli's story, a light bulb went on” said Zingaretti, “because it talks about things that belong to me and contains the possibility of proposing a broader discussion on issues close to my heart. The story is about the rebirth of a person, his extraordinary ability to get up, stand on his own feet and walk towards the light at the end of the tunnel. It talks about the management of pain, in an algophobic society that has forgotten that pain has the great capacity for catharsis, which, uniquely, allows you to overcome it and move on. We, as a society, have demonized it, but that is not a good thing. Joy and pain are sides of the same life matter, pain must not be avoided, it must be welcomed as a necessary ingredient for happiness".
Twenty-year old Marco (Gianmarco Franchini) has an enormous capacity to feel the pain of the world. He uses alcohol and drugs to seek "forgetfulness", to find a state of anesthesia and unconsciousness that is impenetrable to everything, even the anguish of existence. He chases his addictions with the goal of falling asleep at night without remembering, to escape the pain of his excessive, even destructive sensitivity. His mother has died a few years previously; his father, played by Zingaretti, is unable to end his son's suffering, but is capable of being present, always there for him as an act of love, despite his impotence to save him.
Marco starts work at the cleaning cooperative of Rome’s pediatric hospital Bambin Gesù, convinced that the experience of contact with sick children will kill him. But it is not so. His work, meeting colleagues, the shocking awareness of sickness and disease and the loss of young patients, help him find his way of being in the world, of breaking the chains of the addictions he used to create "a soft wave to smooth the edges of pain". He finds his own path towards the light and, with it, the desire to remember.
“Marco is a person of such sensitivity, with skin so thin a flower could pierce it,” notes Gianmarco Franchini, who made his acting debut in Stefano Sollima’s Adagio. “I imagined him as a pure soul who needs protection. It was beautiful, intense to feel his interior emotions on a visceral level, but also extremely tiring because he went to very deep, dark places. But at the same time there are very bright and white places in him.”
The film, which has the Ecomuvi certification of on-set sustainability, was shot in September 2023 in Rome and the surrounding area. Hospital Policlinico Umberto I, where many of the scenes are set, served as Bambin Gesù, the city’s large pediatric hospital, where Marco starts work for the cleaning cooperative. The production also shot on location in the city (National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art) and in the municipalities of Marino, Ariccia and Santa Marinella.
“I wanted to focus on the anxieties of a young human being, as the book does; at what is happening to our young people today, struggling to find a fixed point. Also because as soon as you find it, it has already moved. In every era, young people are defined by restlessness, necessary rebellion against the status quo, expression of their inner agitations, their need to be seen. But there are also historical periods when this state is made more dramatic by what the world is experiencing. Technological innovation has been so fast in recent times that we have not been able to find answers, not politically nor philosophically. We are also living in a moment of profound climate crisis and are close to a great migration. This is the first generation to believe that their future is worse than the experience of their fathers, and I believe that this generates very strong anxiety that is extremely difficult to manage.”
La casa degli sguardi - a Bibi Film, Clemart with Rai Cinema and Stand by Me production, produced by Angelo Barbagallo, Gabriella Buontempo and Massimo Martino - is also a film about how work can create stability and identity: "We define ourselves through what we do in life”, notes Zingaretti. “The saving power of work is in the definition it gives you. This is the drama of those who don't have a job, even greater than economic hardship. As artists who have chosen this profession, we know this only too well; when we’re at home we don't know who or what we are".