In this new drama from Gabriele Salvatores, the excellent Toni Servillo stars as Leo Bernadi, a successful and acclaimed Italian director. He is approaching the end of his career, but he cannot accept his slow decline. The last movie he just finished shooting is inspired by the novel about Casanova by Arthur Schnitzler, a character so similar to the director, even more than he could imagine.

Oscar-winning Neapolitan director Gabriele Salvatores returns with a droll comedy led by the ever-brilliant Toni Servillo in the role of acclaimed film director Leo Bernadi, who is making the film Casanova’s Return.

The fictitious director struggles to accept his ageing; simultaneously, the film’s protagonist, the great lover Casanova wrestles with his own diminishing powers. These two parallel stories provide hilarious and irony-filled situations in both “reality” and fiction.

The script was inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s novel about Casanova, a man whose glory days
are over and whose charms no longer attract women. Casanova falls for the beautiful Marcoline, who reawakens his desire. As he attempts his seduction, it leads him to the tragic understanding: he’s become an old man. Salvatores extracts wonderful if satirical, insights from the double set-up.

The stakes are high for the director, and the existentialstakes are high for Casanova.
Their destiny will lead them to a final extraordinary final confrontation.
- Paolo Rotondo

IT/FR | 2022 | Comedy/Drama | 90 min | Dir. Gabriele Salvatores | In Italian with English subtitles

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