The film’s director, Giuseppe Tornatore, took the stage before the screening to recount the origin of the project: “When I met Brunello for the first time, I didn’t know anything about him. So then, listening to his stories, I found myself involved in his adventure and what has turned out to be an experimental movie, as I like to call it. I thank Brunello for allowing me to enter his story and tell it in my own way.”
The director then extended his thanks to the team, saying, “I can’t really list them all, but I would like to make one name and single out one single person: Maestro Nicola Piovani, who composed the score for the whole movie.”
Piovani, greeted by applause, also spoke. “I’m extremely pleased of the opportunity to be able to enter in this movie through my music. It is not always easy to find movies where you can apply a score and music that is poetical. Working in this movie, I’m especially honored, because I worked with a director who is a poet, a true poet, and I was attracted to this storyline, which is extremely fascinating and charming. It is fascinating as a story because it tells pieces of utopia. I’m always fascinated by people who want to translate into reality pieces of their utopia. What I wanted to say, I said through the score.”
Brunello: The Gracious Visionary took director Tornatore two years, the visuals alternating between auteur reconstructions (the young Cucinelli is played by Saul Nanni) and real-life testimonies from those who know the designer, one balancing the other. The result is a portrait that starts from the country house where it all began and reaches the present, chronicling the birth of a company that has become an international model. The cast also includes many non-professional performers from Umbria, chosen precisely to restore the community dimension that runs through the entrepreneur’s story.
After the screening, the evening continued at the studio’s reconstruction of the ancient Basilica Aemilia, which was opened specially to host a celebratory dinner. A path of candles crossed the Roman set, creating a suspended atmosphere that led to the spaces set up for the occasion. Here, among the columns of the Forum, the evening came to a close in one of Cinecittà’s most evocative settings.
