Along the Ridge

Colour, 35 mm
Italy, 2006, 108 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

Eleven-year-old Tommi lives with his sister and father, who is making every effort to ensure that the children do not miss their absent mother. Renato has money problems and is sometimes too disciplinarian with his children, especially his son, but the family is getting along reasonably well until the sudden return of his wife, Stefania. She is all penitence and promises that she will never leave her children again. Viola receives her mother with open arms, but Renato and above all Tommi are rightly more cautious. The equilibrium of the family is undermined, and when Tommi finds that even his father is not the unshakeable pillar of support he believed him to be, his ideas about life start to collapse. The directorial debut of successful actor Kim Rossi Stuart (seen, for example, in Antonioni’s and  Wenders’ film Beyond the Clouds – 1995) was chosen for the programme of the parallel section Directors’ Fortnight at this year’s Cannes Festival and won the C.I.C.A.E. Award. The role of the mother Stefania is played by the Slovak-born Barbora Bobulová, who has made a name as a leading Italian film actress. She has worked with Marco Bellocchio, Michele Placido and Ferzan Ozpetek.

About the director

Kim Rossi Stuart (b. 1969, Rome) appeared while still a child in Mauro Bolognini’s film Fatti di gente per bene (1974). His looks predestined him to the role of romantic young man, which he successfully played in films by Franco Brusati, Alessandro d’Alatri, Peter Del Monte, Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders (Beyond the Clouds, 1995) His most recent role was in Michele Placido’s Crime Novel (Romanzo criminale), screened in competition at the Berlinale in 2006. He co-wrote his directorial debut Along the Ridge and appears in it as the father.