Nuovo Olimpo

Is not easy to find a good movie about this. And Nuovo Olimpo is a good one: elegant, touching and beautiful film about love, passion or memories of times already gone, but remain always with you doesn't matter how many years pass.

This movie is a full package: good casting, directing, acting, photography, music , story line, the end and that 70's Italian atmosphere results in a surprinly good film that I wasn't expecting and that feeling is so good, when you have zero expectations and you find something like this. Probably Nuovo Olimpo will make you cry and feel emotional; and it is good , the movie works and touch you.

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.

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.

Damiano Gavino and Andrea de Luigi are the two splendid protagonists of this wonderful retro-modern melodrama.

I was partially familiar with the Turkish/Italian director Ferzan Ozpeteck. Years ago I saw his Le Fate Ignoranti - titled in the USA with the unimaginative His Secret Life - I remember loving it. His Nuovo Olimpo belongs to the same universe but miles apart. I saw the film last night and I keep thinking about that ending. Did I see what I think I saw? I was completely taken be the gazes of the two actors. I believed it, totally, but I'll see it again, soon. A surprise and a delight. Thank you.

So many reasons to like it , from main actors work ( Luisa Ranieri offers a gorgeous portrait of Titti ) to the 70 decade atmosphere, to the humor and, especialy admirable elegance are good reasons to see it. Again.

Because it is one of films using as efficient kick for return across personal memories about encounters and old stories who, after decades, are more fresh or present than in moments when they are real facts.

But the real good point is the wisedom to not propose a manifesto, a lesson or a moral. Only a story about intense love of youth , an accident changing everything, the profession as way of succes .

Sure, the physical beauty of Andrea di Luigi and Damiano Gavino is a not insignificant virtue, but the gift for viewer remains the clever manner to craft a story using smart the cliches of a remarkable director.

The gay crust is just splendid used for a clear- tender- nostalgic state of heart .

So, not bad idea to see it.