«Il sol dell’avvenire», the new film by Nanni Moretti is a carousel of emotions

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Moretti looks to the past to understand the present and reflect on the future: this is how we could summarize “Il sol dell’avvenire”, the new film by the Italian director on the bill at the next Cannes Film Festival.
As often in Moretti’s career, before the presentation on the Croisette his feature films are distributed in theaters in Italy and this film full of ideas and themes that will make fans of the director of “Bianca” and “Dear Diary” happy is no exception.

Melancholy thinking about the passage of time, Moretti signs a film, where his character is an aged Michele Apicella, with many (self) quotations that refer to the feature films of the first part of his career. The director deals with themes that have always been dear to him such as politics and the couple relationship, focusing on psychotherapy and, of course, on cinema, also allowing oneself the whim of throwing a dig at the most famous streaming platform of recent times, Netflix.

Laughter and tears

In this comedy, which also mixes dramatic cues, fans of the director’s cinema will laugh and be moved, within a veritable swirl of emotions in which styles and registers alternate. The comedic tempos are perfect, but they are equally incisive the bitterest passages in this film of great humanity and which represents one of the most personal works of all the career of the director born in 1953. Between Fellinian references and a sarcasm that touches so many exposed nerves of yesterday and today’s society, “The sol dell’avvenire” is as much a film about cinema as it is a film about life in general, capable of reasoning with great force on existential concepts that Moretti tackles with courage and heartfelt participation.

In the cast, in addition to the director, we find Margherita Buy, Silvio Orlando, Valentina Romani, Barbora Bobulova and the French Mathieu Amalric. Will Cannes have an excellent reception? We’re willing to bet yes.

Mavka and the Enchanted Forest

In theaters, for the little ones, there is also “Mavka and the Enchanted Forest”, an animated film from Ukraine. At the center is the story of a nature spirit named Mavka, a beautiful nymph known to human beings such as Soul of the forest, who lives in nature together with his guardian animal. Her job is to protect and safeguard the forest from humans, who are eager to invade her kingdom. When she comes across a young human being, the talented musician Lucas, Mavka falls madly in love with him. Her feelings, however, will put her in front of a difficult choice: follow love or fulfill her duty as guardian of the forest. The subject is certainly not very original and the rhythm works on and off, but the environmentalist messages are profound and capable of making this film enter the list of the most interesting animated titles of recent years dedicated to this theme.