Elisabetta Sgarbi’s new film, L’Isola degli idealisti, will be released in Italian cinemas by Fandango from 8th May. Written by Elisabetta Sgarbi and Eugenio Lio, the film is inspired by Giorgio Scerbanenco’s novel and produced by Bibi Film, Betty Wrong with Rai Cinema and with the support of the Emilia-Romagna region through Emilia-Romagna Film Commission and the contribution of the Ministry of Culture.
The cast includes Tommaso Ragno, Elena Radonicich, Michela Cescon, Renato Carpentieri, Renato De Simone, Tony Laudadio, Mimmo Borrelli, Vincenzo Nemolato, Chiara Caselli, Antonio Rezza, Rossella De Martino.
Principal photography took place in Ferrara and the surrounding province, on the banks of the River Po.
One cold January night, two young thieves on the run - Beatrice Navi and Guido Cenere - reach an island where they are surprised by the guardian, Giovanni Marengadi and Pangloss the Doberman. They are taken to the owners of the sumptuous villa in the centre of the island "delle Ginestre".
The villa is inhabited by the strange Reffi family. Antonio, the head of the family, is a former orchestra conductor who takes a cynical view of life and his two restless children: Carla, a successful writer, waiting for a publisher's response to her new novel, a response that is slow in coming; and Celestino, a former doctor, with a passion for philosophy and mathematics, haunted by the past and obsessed by a violinist whose only memory is preserved in distant images in Super8. The villa also houses the inscrutable housekeeper, Jole, and her husband Vittorio, Carla's secretary.
Celestino proposes a pact to the pair, on the run from who knows what: he will not report them and will hide them from Commissioner Carrua who is on their trail, but they will follow a sort of "education course". Celestino "is certain he can change their lives."
The arrival of the thieves will change the life of everyone in that villa, suspended between water and fog, forever.
Elisabetta Sgarbi notes that: "There are two worlds in the film that interact, oppose each other, and are finally forced to talk to each other: the world of the Island, of Villa Reffi (with its many inhabitants and the dog Pangloss); and the outside world, which gradually invades the Reffis’ fragile balance: the thieves, Commissioner Carrua, the scoundrel Monsiu'.
The film begins with the story of a key character: Villa Reffi (which guided the construction and writing of the film from the start): its garden, Pangloss’ kennel, the basements, view over the water and occupation on the mainland.