The film Il mio posto è qui by Cristiano Bortone and Daniela Porto, with cinematography by Emilio M. Costa CCS, is competing for new talents in cinematography at the Camerimage International Film Festival (16-23 November 2024). We are delighted that Emilio Costa’s talent, which we already appreciated in Non riattaccare, has been promptly recognised abroad at the most prestigious event dedicated to photographic culture in cinema.
For the film’s theatrical release, Emilio M. Costa told us: «REALITY and CRUELTY: in a post-war historical context, these were the key words I decided to focus on. A dark and decisive atmosphere was needed not only to depict the 1940s in southern Italy but also the equally dark souls of its characters. The film was shot mainly handheld. I combined an Alexa Mini with Zeiss High Speed and Zeiss Standard Prime lenses. I chose these spherical lens series, which have no evident distortions, because the image had to be perceived as realistically as possible».
Il mio posto è qui won awards for Best Director and Best Lead Actress at the BiFest.
The film tells the story of the friendship between Marta (Ludovica Martino), a single mother, and Lorenzo (Marco Leonardi), the local homosexual sacristan, in the aftermath of the Second World War in a small Calabrian village. Marta had a child with a fellow villager who died in the war, and now, to “settle” her, she is promised to a widowed farmer, older than her. Lorenzo, known as the “wedding organiser”, had lived in Milan and, perhaps due to the harsh prejudices of the time, withdrew to the small village. His bond with Marta leads her to challenge societal prejudices and fight for her place in the world as a woman. Lorenzo helps her secure a job as a typist, thanks to the Communist Party, on the eve of the Constituent Assembly elections.
«The immediate appeal of this coming-of-age story set in post-war Calabria lies in its construction of a network of relationships where, for once, sympathy for a just opposition politics, what might have been called ‘clean-handed’ in the past, does not give way to caution and convenience».
(Anton Giulio Mancino, Cineforum, 10 May 2024)
