German indie powerhouse The Match Factory has added Italian auteur Nanni Moretti’s next film, “La Nostra Strada,” a Rome-set ensemble drama that will start shooting in March, to its EFM slate.
“La Nostra Strada” will be Moretti’s 14th feature and the first time the Palme d’Or-winning director will not be working from an original idea. It is based on Israeli author Eshkol Nevo’s novel “Thee Floors Up,” according to the film’s casting announcement and to the book’s Italian publisher, Neri Pozza.
The novel is set in a Tel Aviv building in which the residents’ lives, secrets, inner turmoils, and interpersonal dynamics provide a prism through which to view Israeli society. “La Nostra Strada” (which translates as “Our Street”) transposes the novel to an Italian setting and “follows the lives of three families who live in a three-story building in a Roman neighborhood,” The Match Factory said in a statement.
“Over the course of 10 years, each family member is forced to grapple with uncomfortable, difficult and painful situations. The choices of each will set the course for their very existence,” it added.
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“La Nostra Strada” is being produced by Domenico Procacci’s Fandango, Moretti’s Sacher Film shingle, and Rai Cinema in Italy, and co-produced with French company Le Pacte.
The Match Factory managing director Michael Weber said it was “a big honor” for his company to start working with Moretti, adding that he has always admired his work.
Casting details for Moretti’s new film are being kept under wraps. The Match Factory did not confirm reports in the Italian press and on the website of Italy’s official film promotion entity Filmitalia that its ensemble cast includes Italian A-list actors Riccardo Scamarcio (“Loro”) and Margherita Buy (“My Mother”).
Moretti won the 1985 Berlin Silver Bear with “The Mass Is Ended” and scored the 2001 Cannes Palme d’Or for “The Son’s Room,” among many other prizes. He is also known internationally for “Caro Diario” (“Dear Diary”), “We Have a Pope” and “My Mother,” which all competed in Cannes.
His most recent work is documentary “Santiago, Italia,” about how the Italian embassy in Santiago gave asylum to scared Chileans during the country’s 1973 coup d’etat. The doc, for which Moretti interviewed Chileans who survived the regime of Augusto Pinochet with the Italian embassy’s help, is currently having a good run at the Italian box office, grossing more than $670,000 in seven weeks.
