A mordant Toni Servillo may have met his match in this exclusive early image from Scherzetto, director Mario Martone’s feature adaptation of an Italian novel of the same name by author Domenico Starnone.
In an inspired bit of casting, Italian screen legend Servillo stars in Scherzetto as Daniele, a renowned illustrator whose life of elegant solitude is abruptly turned upside down when he’s called on to look after his wildly imaginative and unruly five-year-old grandson. Daniele reluctantly returns to his childhood home in Naples, where his daughter has asked him to care for Mario while she and her husband are away. Confined together in the apartment, grandfather and grandson enter into an escalating battle of wills that forces Daniele to reckon with the ghosts of his own childhood and family history.
Scherzetto premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival and will screen in TIFF inaugural market. Rai Cinema International Distribution is handling world sales, with 01 Distribution releasing the film in Italy.
Toni Servillo in Scherzetto as Daniele.
A pillar of contemporary Italian cinema and theater generally, Martone made his feature debut with Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician, which won the Venice’s Film Fest’s jury prize in 1992. For his part, Servillo, a lion of the Italian stage and screen, last year won the festival’s Volpi Cup for best actor for his performance in Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia.
