“Castle it is not yet sold in France, we hope that it will spread, it will cause damage.” Producer and actor Luca Barbareschi takes 90-year-old Roman Polanski’s new film out of competition with Venice 80, whose previous film he had already produced. I blameLido Grand Jury Prize in 2019.
The topic he brings up at the press conference is freedom of expression, and he does so by thanking artistic director Alberto Barbera: “We had some pretty strong clashes, but I think he gave this festival a lot of independence.”
Referring to I blameBarbareschi strikes: “You can’t send a guarantee notice to the past because we’re in the present: the present is freedom and you can’t have a moral judgment on art.” So Barbera was “very brave in taking the charge, and this year she was just as brave in taking on Polanski, Allen, Wes Anderson (sic) and my Penitent
The patron Eliseo Entertainment continues: “The exhibition should be a place of experimentation, provocation and freedom of expression for artists who have no moral judgment, otherwise we would have to demolish the Sistine Chapel and many of Caravaggio’s works.” Barbareschi also emphasizes how “I blame he was not sold in America, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the Anglo-Saxon countries: I don’t even understand the platforms that offer his work every day, but I don’t want to know about the last two.”
Cast Oliver Masucci, Fanny Ardant, John Cleese, Bronwyn James, Joaquim De Almeida, Luca Barbareschi, Milan Peschel, Fortunato Cerlino, Mickey Rourke Castle takes its name from the Palace Hotel, a castle built in the early 1900s and nestled in the middle of a snow-covered Swiss valley where rich and spoiled guests from all over the world gather every year in a fabulous gothic atmosphere. The 2000 New Year’s Eve party brought them all together in a unique event while the Millennium Bug floats in the air.
“A film of extraordinary actors, a choir, an extraordinary fresco of this world, of what it has become. It’s not just a comedy, it’s full of references. After I blameRoman signed Balzac’s film, human comedy amazing,” continues Barbareschi, emphasizing “Polanski’s energy on set: I hope to do another film together soon.”
For Fanny Ardant, “Roman is a passionate person, from morning till night he remains on the set in search of the absolute,” and Fortunato Cerlino speaks of the “privilege” of participating in the “commedia dell’arte”: the characters are grotesque masks, this comedy is the sublimation of tragedy.”
Cost 21 million euros, Castle also includes Barbareschi as a translator, Bongo, a retired porn star who took her name from the funeral home that took responsibility for Roman’s father’s body, as evidenced in the Hometown documentary. The bongo, concludes Barbareschi, “is a symbol of this age dominated by frightening self-centeredness. The new god is a selfie that is a storytelling tent. Bongo is a porn star whose audience consists of elderly people suffering from erotomania. He embodies our eroticized world, in which everything is pornography, from sentiment to communication, right down to the economy replaced by finance.”
Castle will be released in our cinemas on September 28 from 01 Distribution.