The Black Sheep (La Pecora Nera)

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THE BLACK SHEEP (LA PECORA NERA)

A film by Ascanio Celestini

Produced by Madeleine ALESSANDRA ACCIAI, CARLO MACCHITELLA, GIORGIO MAGLIULO

In collaboration with Rai Cinema and BIM DISTRIBUZIONE

Starring ASCANIO CELESTINI, GIORGIO TIRABASSI, MAYA SANSA, LUISA DE SANTIS, NICOLA RIGNANESE, BARBARA VALMORIN

For the first time on the screen LUIGI FEDELE

And featuring TERESA SAPONANGELO

For further information: Beta Cinema Press, Dorothee Stoewahse, Tel: + 49 89 67 34 69 15, [email protected] , www.betacinema.com Pictures and filmclips available on ftp.betafilm.com , username: ftppress01, password: betapress

Acknowledgement of national and cultural interest by Direzione Generale per il Cinema del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali

Story and screenplay by Ascanio Celestini, Ugo Chiti and Wilma Labate

Based on the book “La pecora nera” by Ascanio Celestini (Ed. Einaudi)

CREW

Director of photography DANIELE CIPRI’ Film editor GIOGIO’ FRANCHINI Sound designer MAURIZIO ARGENTIERI Production design TOMMASO BORDONE Set decorator STEFANIA MAGGIO Costume design GRAZIA COLOMBINI Make up MARCO ALTIERI Hair Stylist DANIELA ALTIERI Assistant director VALIA SANTELLA General organization ANTONELLA VISCARDI a.p.a.i. Director ASCANIO CELESTINI

CAST (in order of apparition)

Professor ADRIANO PALLOTTA Alberto ALBERTO PAOLINI African nun IGIABA SCEGO

Teacher ROBERTA SFERZI Marinella child WALLY GALDIERI Maurizio Pancotti FLAVIO SANTINI Robertino Casoria ANDREA FANTOZZI Patient VERONICA CRUCIANI Priest GAETANO VENTRIGLIA Thin ALESSANDRO MARVERTI Fat MAURO MARCHETTI Young Prostitute ALESSIA BERARDI Supermarket General Manager ROBERTO LATINI Supermarket cashier ANNAMARIA SPALLONI Medical Director MASSIMO BARONE Hospital attendant OLEK MINCER Marshal MAURILIO LETO Carabiniere FABIO BIAGGI

And with the friendly featuring of PEPPE SERVILLO, DANIELA BENDONI OTELLO ANGELI

SYNOPSIS

Nicola is a young boy who was born in the country during the Sixties, with his mother sent to an asylum, his father and his two brothers that are shepherds and his grandma rearing chickens that takes care of him. At school he’s banished to the last desk, he’s absent-minded, he doesn’t do his homework and the teacher calls him “the black sheep”, but he loves Marinella, the most beautiful girl of his class and when he’s not lost in her eyes or blonde hair, Nicola tells about extraterrestrials and women licking naked men; to show everybody he’s brave, he eats spiders still alive. A crime committed by his brothers, falls on the dangerous kid that talks about aliens; Nicola becomes a troublesome witness and his reckless family sends him to the asylum where his mother died and where nobody will listen to him when he talks. A guest, not a patient, in a place that feeds him and puts him up. Following a second tragic event of which the responsibility falls on him again and after having suffered brutal treatments, Nicola develops another identity by inventing a friend, a technician, that keeps him company. There will be two different actors to play Nicola’s split personality, generating a slight touch of humour. Then Nicola meets Marinella, the beloved of his childhood, at the supermarket where he often goes accompanied by the old nun that has known him since then. In a sweet love atmosphere, Nicola pluck up courage to declare his love still there after 35 years, while the other one, ignored by the surrounding world, comments with risqué talks. The joy of finding her again and the deep sorrow after her clear refusal, give Nicola the possibility of recovering himself, getting rid of the imaginary friend.

PRODUCTION NOTES

Monday, 15th of March - first day of filming Between the Palmiro Togliatti, the Collatina, the bypass and the beltway, there are some Roms and vegetable gardens of many elderly people. One of them is coming to talk. He used to act as a bit in the sixties and seventies. He played a part in a western movie in his birthplace The Abruzzo. He was asked to act as an Indian with his horse, he took wine with him and fell asleep up in the mountains… Actually grandma’s house is called ‘little dump’ as she says, “My little dump”. She arrived here 25 years ago with her boyfriend.

Wednesday, 17th of March - scene of Nicola eating the spiders The animal man arrives with two spiders, one is big, the other one is enormous. Tropical spiders, that need to work immediately otherwise they freeze to death. The small one is as big as a kid’s hand. It’s a black spider that weaves by digging in the sand. Luigi must get close to the beast, he should at least be near it and maybe tingle it with a small stick. But as soon as he sees it, he wants to touch it, so we put the spider on a fake web and Luigi really plays with it.

Thursday, 28th of March - Luigi is dressed up as a rabbit The last night I thought that kids must do something practical, just playing it’s not enough for them, so I make a list of possible games. The wheelbarrow, puss in the corner, silent alphabet, beautiful little statues, one, two, three freeze! Hide and seek, tossing coins against a wall…I let Rocco, Peppe Servillo’s son going behind Luigi and saying “ I come from Jerusalem without laughing and without crying” it’s child’s play but it consists in passing between two rows of children that try to make him 4

laugh while he’s waving his arms as a flagellant striving to be serious. It really seems a ceremony of flagellants or a jail corporal punishment.

Friday, 19th of March - today we shot the school As for the parish youth club, I took note of some actions that children can act. Rocco writes on his hand the Roma football team formation of 1974-1975, he writes while he’s whispering it. I like when characters, especially kids, speak in a low voice, they do reveal something… What? It’s ok. A child with glasses sticks a chewing gum under his desk and then he eats a slice of pizza secretly, another one pops gums, Robertino Casoria plays the game of the pen pretending it’s melted down with Pancotti Maurizio who replies with the trick of the magic hankies that change their colour; then paper bags with pens and written notes among girls. No airplanes. The last day of school a child writes who’s going to the seaside and who’s going to the mountains, as the Nazi list of the good and the wicked, the school that it’s choosy on holidays too, that it’s bad also when it tries to be good.

Wednesday, 24th of March - scene of the queer dog The animal man has brought a dog that is a real swindle. Mrs Viscardi says that dogs should not eat before shooting, the trainer must feed them as a reward for what they have done, afterwards. This dog has already been fed and doesn’t want to work at all. We try three, four times but he always runs away from his trainer. Useless. So we change the scene. Rignanese arrives, he lit his cigarette and says “Too much of a silence here” and then he whispers as if he was talking to someone “Lucky you” and goes up again sounding the horn. Light is perfect. In these days a little dog was strolling about, a crossbreed. His name is Max but Luigi calls him Fusillo. Luigi and the other boys insist that he must play the part of the dog but Mrs Viscardi says that it’s better to take the trained one, but he turned out to be a blunder. Strangely enough Fusillo did not show up today. Giulia and the others go and look for him. His owner shut him up somewhere for fear that he could be bitten by the shepherd dogs. He says that once a Sheperd dog nearly cut his head off and he was doubtful about going to the vet or putting him down. He went to the vet and he had forty stitches. He put him in the boiler room to make him feel warm and it seems that two cats licked his wounds so they did not become infected. The story says that Fusillo goes around looking for food to share with the cats. In the end, they find Fusillo who arrives running and plays the part perfectly.

Monday, 29th of March - the first day at the mental hospital We shot two standard scenes but they give us a lot of troubles. In the 80 the light is changing constantly and we did not get much done. The 81 it’s a passage to the gate where Pancotti Maurizio will die. I ask the set designer to paint a piece of different colour and write with the paintbrush “PAD. 18” with a full stop after pad and the d in lower letter as if it was a slapdash, temporary sign. The gate must be recognizable at the second glance. It should represent the place of the ritual death of Pancotti, the child’s death, but also Nicola’s identity and social death. It must remind a sort of sacrificial and memorial altar, sacred and institutional violence. But some Roms go to and and fro, they make noise, we can hear them arguing in the microphones, talking about police and robberies…

Tuesday, 30th of March In the morning we are in the bundle room for the scene 16. The bundle room is the place where are stored the few goods belonging to the inmates. Paper packages, plastic bags and suitcases. The nun speaks the most, but now that I’m reading the film-script again, a passage is not so clear anymore. Why does she bring them there? Then I think she has something to gain, so I change the position of a cue, the second part of the first. She said “If you find something you like, take it, it pays for the eggs” 5

Now she says only the first part, we shot the entire scene, the nun allows grandma to take something, by convincing the child (just as in the supermarket when you try to convince the child to convince his parent, that is the only one who can pay). The rabbit costume must be put in a place as if the nun had prepared it on purpose. There is a central cue that she pronounces whispering, a hospital guideline, “it doesn’t matter if these poor things have loose trousers. What really matters is that they get up and hurry up to get breakfast. The hospital policy is to do things on time, because mental people do not have any time in their heads” She palms grandma off with the old costume for the kid and then she can say “it pays for the eggs”. Very well. But Luigi? He stays there with nothing to do, he only has a voiceover in the end. So I make him grab a toilet paper. He feels that it’s soft, it’s a new experience for him, the nun says “ Take it, don’t worry, it’s the one I use, not the patient’s” He has the little honour of cleaning his bottom as a nun, a privilege he will maintain also when he is grown up.

In the afternoon: the room of the dying mother, scene 24. Painstaking set by Tommaso and Stefania. Cold light. I like the idea of keeping everybody still, speaking in a low voice. Everybody in total silence in front of the mental hospital. Everybody motionless in the mental hospital. All it’s mental hospital. Veronica is the patient next to his mother “One more stamp and I can leave. The nun knows somebody that can stamp… (pause) Do you have any children? She says. She has the educational illness. The same disease you can find in all the institutions from the school to the lager. Yesterday, Mrs Polverini won the regional elections. We read about public and private school in the newspapers. The Italian Left wants the public school, the Right wants the private one. There is the same difference between public mental hospital and private mental hospital, public army and private army, public jail and private jail, public lager and private lager. Between murder and electric chair.

Wednesday, 31st of March We arrive early to prepare the scene where Nicola does the miracle and raises the dead lizard. There is the animal man with both the entire lizard and the one with the docked tail. I think Luigi should have a box to catch the little animal. I ask Tommaso to put it in a heap of garbage. We are on the tank. This is a little stage too, the one of the miracle. Then we go to the gate. Franco Salomon trained Flavio and Andrea. Andrea, who is Robertino Casoria, must climb over the gate rapidly. Flavio must arrive at least halfway, but during the rehearsal he’s able to reach the points at the top. We can place a soft seat in there and leave it there for an extreme long shot. In the afternoon Giorgio comes for the dress rehearsal, track suit with blouse. Short hair. And the beard? Maybe no beard at all “Well” he says “the character is just this, without distinguishing marks. He’s mad just for what he says but he’s not a character part”. During the dinner break I try some clothes too. Vegetable soup with rice and salad. Then we go to shot at the gate. Extreme long shot with two cameras, Ciprì and Bellocchio. We need a large one, a 32. In the first one, Robertino climbs up immediately while Pancotti arrives halfway. The cues are correct, I added one “Who the fuck has closed it?” Pancotti says, “what the fuck it’s of yours? Let’s go, climb over!” replies Robertino. In the second one Pancotti arrives at the top. We leave him there for a little while. In the third one he copped it in there. In the fourth one he stays, to have the death rattle until the escape of Robertino. Well. I would keep the long shot, at least until a moment before Robertino escapes, until the reverse shot of Nicola that we shot when the other two are already gone away. Nicola, repeating in a low voice and without looking up “Please Pancotti Maurizio, stop it, stop it, stop it immediately, stop it….” Reverse shot on Pancotti corpse covered with a sheet Goodnight

Thursday the 1st of April Ratzinger incites catholic doctors to refuse abortion, speaking about innocent children that were not born yet. Anyone reads the contradiction? How can they be children if they were not born yet? The institution builds its power on contradiction, even better on paradox Today we are even forward with one scene. We are shooting also the 15 in the storeroom with Nicola/Ascanio that sees the products of 1975, cans without any brand or appeal, but first of all we have the 35 with the kiss on his dead mother’s forehead and the 79 with the first hospitalization with the child that has been kept under observation. I think I should change this scene of the dead woman with number 24 when we see the mother for the first time (and the only one, alive). Just a few seconds of long shot with each actor playing his little action. Luigi kisses the woman on her forehead, his father staggers on his legs, one of the brothers looks straight ahead, another one turns back to finds his father on the other side. Barbara puts a coin in the dead woman’s hand, her duty on being admitted to afterlife.

ASCANIO CELESTINI– director, scriptwriter and main character

Short Biography Ascanio Celestini Roman, actor and writer. His writing is based on field research and investigation in memory of recent events and issues of modern history and public imaginary. " Radio Clandestina," "Scemo di guerra ", "La pecora nera" and "Appunti per un film sulla lotta di classe" are some of the shows that he’s performing in Italy and abroad. He’s the author of the documentary "Senza paura," "Parole sante" and the album "Parole Sante". For several years, he has been author and actor in the show "Parla con me," by Serena Dandini on RaiTre. His books are published by Einaudi and Donzelli. His latest novel is "Lotta di Classe". He is currently shooting his first film as director.

Biography Ascanio Celestini was born in Rome in 1972. His works are based on the field research and investigate on recent events and issues of the modern history and public imaginary. His writings always come from a research work, carried out after long periods of interviews and labs.

In 1998 there are Cicoria, written, directed and played with Gaetano Ventriglia. Baccalà, a monologue which opens the Milleuno project and that will continue in the next 2 years with Vita Morte e Miracoli and La Fine del Mondo, that has been awarded at the Rome Theatre as one of “the seven shows for a new Italian theatre in 2000”

In 2000 we have Radio Clandestina, which tells about the massacre of the Fosse Ardeatine, and Cecafumo on the folktale tradition. After two years of research and contacts with workers, peasants and miners, he has his début in 2002 with Factory, that tells about fifty years of working class history through three generations. Scemo di Guerra made his debut at the Venice Biennale in 2004 and tells about Rome Liberation, thanks to the stories he was told in his family. La Pecora Nera. Funeral oration of the electric asylum co-produced by the Teatro Stabile of Umbria that had his début in October 2005. This is the result of three years of work and interviews to nurses, doctors and patients who have experienced some of the major Italian asylums.

In 2006 is Appunti per un film sulla lotta di classe a performance dealing with temporary employment in a call centre that changes according to the place in which it is represented and that follows the changes of the temporary employment through decrees, inspections and the fights of these last years.

For his work, he received many awards, among which two Ubu prizes from the Associazione Critici Italiani, Histryo, Bagutta, Fiesole, Oddone Cappellino, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Vittorio Gassman, Golden Graal, Satira Politica, Gilberto Govi, Fescennino d’oro and Campidoglio, prize Volponi.

In 2004 he shot the documentary Senza Paura on the adventures of six night workers (produced by Fandango, Fabbrica e Comune di Roma). He worked at Radio3 where he represented all his last shows, participated in many programmes and for which he wrote and played Milleuno, stories of folk tradition, Guerra e Pace about the war in Rome, Il Tempo del Lavoro and Bella Ciao about work, war and mental illness subjects.

He published with Donzelli: Cecafumo, Fabbrica, the book-dvd Radio Clandestina and the illustrated story Giufà e re Salomone. He published with Titivillus the book-essay Cicoria together with Gaetano Ventriglia and Simone Soriani. He published with Einaudi the novel Storie di uno scemo di Guerra, La Pecora Nera and the book-dvd Scemo di Guerra.

Many essays have been published on his work, among which L’invenzione della memoria edited by Andrea Porcheddu (Publ. Principe costante), Storie da legare edited by Rodolfo Pacchettini (Publ. della Meridiana) and Tutte storie by Patrizia Bologna (Publ.Ubulibri ).

Broadcasting of his programmes Fabbrica, Radio Clandestina and Scemo di Guerra have been done on television. He was author and actor in the programme “La storia siamo noi” and in particular, he took care of the six episodes of the Italian history through the archives of Pieve santo Stefano. Since October 2006 he participates in the programme “Parla con me” on RAI 3

During the fall 2007 he published his first album Parole Sante (Radio Fandango production) telling the story of a group of people working in a call centre and published on dvd in the spring 2008 (Fandamgo Publ.)

In August 2008, he participated as the only Italian author to the project "Trait d'union" presented at the International Festival The Mousson d'été with the script "Factory" (formerly staged in Belgium). A script that made his début at the Theatre Vidy Lausanne, directed by Charles Tordjman and music by Joan Marini. The novel "Lotta di classe" published on April 2009, closes an important part of his work on the precarious situation of many Italian workers and in particular the call centre operators that in the last years carried out an important struggle, within the leader company of its kind in Italy, Atesia in the suburbs of Rome. "A folktale with the most noble significance” - wrote Curzio Maltese in La Repubblica - Many years ago, Pasolini announced that the country was about to undergo a profound anthropological change, starting from the outskirts of the chief town. Celestini tells us how all this happened and its social dramatic effects.

DIRECTORS STATEMENT I told Nicola's story in a thousand stage shows. I capture the eyes of the public with my face, the words flow like a river; the tone arises and then gets sweeter; the story is both, fable and truth. I cause smiles and commotion, sometimes anger. Never boredom, I hope. Then a publisher asked me to work on the book and the word became a different sign. Writing enables a time of reflection, insinuates a necessary decency, demands a more solid structure, the characters acquire a multiform identity, and the places turn into moods denouncing a time. The seduction of writing has to follow various rules: there's no stage, neither the sound of the voice nor the face, the emotions become true through the reading, fantasy gets free if the story holds.

An adventure come successfully to an end, a published and reprinted book that preludes to new and more exciting enterprise: to turn the story into a movie. A different language, a challenge, a new movement, than becomes rich of instruments, is articulated in many actions, winds up in a succession of images.

GIORGIO TIRABASSI

A stage actor since 1981, Giorgio Tirabassi became one of the most loved actors in Italy thanks to his role in the TV series “Distretto di Polizia” and later as the lead actor in “Paolo Borsellino”, the biographic TV Movie on the life of the Italian judge killed by the Mafia. The short movie “Non dire gatto” written and directed by Tirabassi won several awards, a David di Donatello award as best short movie in 2002 among the others. MAYA SANSA

After a few years in acting schools in London, Maya Sansa debuted on screen with Italian renowned director Marco Bellocchio in the movie “La balia (The nanny)”. For her performance she earned an Italian Golden Globe as Best breakthrough actress in 1999 and was nominated as Best Supporting Actress for the Italian Silver Ribbon awards. Maya later worked with Bellocchio for a second time, starring in the film "Goodmorning, Night". Sansa has also worked with Marco Tullio Giordana in the film "The Best of Youth ", not to mention Liliana Cavani and Benoit Jaquot. On May 2, 2004 The New York Times published an article which named her as the new image of Italian cinema.

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