Nuovo Olimpo

The story is so good. Two main actors are amazing. Screenplay, music...are harmony with this film.

Love declined in all its forms, facets, and contradictions.

It is said that the only loves destined to last forever are the impossible ones. You can believe it. You may think differently.

One thing, however, is certain, impossible loves, or rather, those that do not have the opportunity to be lived to the full, are the ones we remember forever.

And the love told by Nuovo Olimpo is part of this category.

Nuovo Olimpo is a film capable of reaching the hearts not only of cinema enthusiasts or Ozpetek fans but of all those who have loved in their lives.

Nuovo Olimpo is pure romance and having, even if only for a couple of hours, this feeling of amazement, passion, disappointment, melancholy, and nostalgia is a true wonder.

On 22 October 2023, after the opening of the Rome Film Festival on 1 November 2023, Ferzan Özpetek's film was released on Netflix.

He wrote the script together with his old friend Gianni Romoli.

The release date of the film was not chosen randomly. The story of the film begins 30 years ago on 1 November.

Özpetek's films are divided into two categories.

A) films with a Turkish crew in whole or in part b) Films with an all-Italian crew.

This film is in the second section.

Ferzan is an incredibly good director and storyteller...

He painted a magnificent 70s Italy and both the background and jukebox music represent both the period and the spirit of the film well.

In 2023, I hope Netflix Italy will continue to surprise us with the second Ferzan Ozpetek film.

The film highlights an interesting point with its scenario that focuses on two men who meet and fall in love in 1970s Rome and spend the next 30 years looking for each other.

It is an interesting detail that the entire world lives in the same feelings between the 1940s and the eighties...

They dressed similarly, watched similar films, fell in love with similar songs and experienced similar political movements.

Sociologists should study this.

In this context, Italy, especially in the background of the first half of the film, will not be foreign to many people.

In 1978, the Istanbul-born director Ferzan ÖZPETEK came to Rome. And that's exactly when his semi-autobiographical film, which he directed for the global streaming platform NETFLIX, takes place.

At the end of the 1970s, Rome and its CINECITTA were the center of the European film industry. Filmmaking is becoming a little more difficult (especially due to the increasing popularity of television in Italy), but CINECITTA can still draw on the triumphs of the past. Classics like IL GIARDINO DEI FINZI-CONTINI show the resolute Titti (great: Luisa RANIERI) in her arthouse cinema NUOVO OLIMPO in the north-east of Rome. The cinema is particularly popular as a meeting place for homosexual men who use the toilet for extensive cruising. The film student Enea (Damiano GAVINO) and the medical student Pietro (Andrea Di LUIGI) also get to know and love each other. The beginning of a great love! But times in Rome back then were extremely complicated for various reasons, as we know from numerous genre films from ItaloCinema. Due to a particularly stupid coincidence, the two young men lose sight of each other. It wasn't until many years later that they met again under dramatic circumstances. The ophthalmologist Pietro is now married to the beautiful Giulia (Greta SCARANO), and the celebrated film director Enea is in a relationship with the robust Antonio (Alvise RIGO)...

Beautiful images from Rome (filmed primarily in the Monte Sacro district on the eastern bank of the Tiber), a romantic love story between two men and a wonderfully nostalgic look at the Italian film world! Despite minor weaknesses in the script, Ferzan ÖZPETEK has managed to create a fairytale-like look back at a bygone era.

In an era of films with no emotion or passion, just robotic sequels full of CGI, this was a true surprise. And on Netlix, no less, not exactly a streamer platform known for quality recently. It has a touching story, excellent acting, good direction, and a beautiful setting in Roma. Its mood is poignant, exploring a great love affair of missed opportunities, and the passion for love is emblematic of life itself, full of twists and turns, moments of being (to use Virginia Woolf's phrase), nostalgia, and yes regret. The time and space of the film is handled very elegantly. This is by far the Best Romantic Film of 2023, plus one of the most moving films of the year as well. And the fact that this great romance is between two men can finally, after decades, be considered the most normal part of the story.

Gorgeous Rome makes the perfect setting for this story of romance, lost love, nostalgia, melancholy and the "what ifs" of life. I absolutely loved this quiet, understated, touching film. Two beautiful men meet, in a way that gay and bi men often used to have to meet, and they experience a brief, passionate romance that stays with them all of their lives.

Excellent acting, cinematography and direction is enhanced with some beautiful lines of dialogue. Most people, as they get older, can probably relate to the feeling you get when you remember that love that somehow got away but stays in your heart and your memory forever.