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English Titles S

Salvatore – That's Life

Original title: Salvatore - Questa è la vita
German title: Salvatore – So ist das Leben *
Italy, 2006

Director: Cugno, Gian Paolo
Production company: Buena Vista
Co-producers: Globe Films
Age recommendation: 10 years and up

Synopsis:
Marco Brioni, a young elementary school teacher living in Rome, is suddenly offered a one year teaching position in a small Sicilian town. In Sicily he meets Salvatore, an orphan who must deal with unusual circumstances and responsibilities for a boy of his age. He lives with his grandmother Maria and younger sister Mariuccia in a little house by the sea. Salvatore supports his grandmother and sister by going to work at the tomato warehouse that had belonged to his father and by catching fish for them right in front of their home. Working and living like an adult doesn't leave him any time for school. Marco ends up going to his house to give him lessons and the two of them become inseparable. (Source: Filmitalia)


This first full-length film by Gian Paolo Cugno is set in his hometown of Pachino in Sicily. It tells the story of the friendship at elementary school between a boy who has lost his parents and his new teacher, who is from the north of Italy. The role of the teacher is played by the renowned actor Enrico Lo Verso. As they are getting to know each other, the teacher is astonished at the serenity with which Salvatore bears his fate and the boy, on the other hand, finds the missing father in him. Cugno describes the Sicilian landscape in a modern, realistic and almost raw way, as a country still governed by ancient traditions despite the arrival of modern technology like the Internet. (Source: Zlin 2007)

Festivals:
Zlin 2007, Filmfest Munich 2007, Tel Aviv 2007

World sales address/es:
Walt Disney (I)