Watch “The Wholly Family”

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Information and features on Terry Gilliam’s one-reeler, The Wholly Family – shot early in 2011. Edited by Phil Stubbs.

The Wholly Family is a short film written and directed by Terry Gilliam. It was shot in Naples in January 2011, and postproduction took place in London in Spring 2011. Funding came from Italian pasta manufacturer Garofalo. The director’s team included Nicola Pecorini (Director of Photography), Mick Audsley (Editor) and Gabriella Pescucci (Costume Designer) – each has worked with Gilliam several times before.

The short film was premiered in Rome in May 2011, and was shown at a number of film festivals around the world throughout the rest of 2011. It is available free-to-view in Italy at the Garofalo website, and for those living elsewhere, it is available to view above (through Distrify).

The Wholly Family won the Best Short Film award at the European Film Awards in Berlin in December 2011.

Gilliam and Pecorini have both spoken to Dreams about the project. Links to these articles are below.

Click on the image for more detail

Further features on The Wholly Family within Dreams:

Terry Gilliam interviewed in April 2011 about The Wholly Family

Cinematographer Nicola Pecorini writes about the preparation and technical details of the shoot in Naples.

Information on the Guardian event – on January 23 2012 – to launch the film

The text below is from the Garafalo press release:

[Rome, Italy – May 24, 2011]

The award-winning movie director Terry Gilliam invites us to rediscover the magic of Naples – and Italian food traditions – with his latest short film The Wholly Family, entirely filmed on location in Italy with a full Italian cast and produced by Pasta Garofalo. The Wholly Family will be premiered in Italy at the end of this month, before hitting several film festivals around the world.

The Wholly Family will be opening in Italy tomorrow, on May 25, with a launch event and a national theatre distribution, followed by participation to international short film festivals around the world.

“This film has been produced by an Italian company: Garofalo, who produces pasta”, said award-winning director Terry Gilliam, who directed its latest short film The Wholly Family with an Italian cast and on location in Naples, Italy. “Italy has always been home to the greatest cinema in the world, but now there is a big production void. It’s good to see how this can be fixed when private companies choose to adopt traditional cinema rather than advertising as a channel to communicate their products. It has been wonderful for me”.

The Wholly Family is the story of an American couple with a 10-year old son, and their
dramatic experience in Naples, Italy – an adventure narrated by Gilliam through a bundle of love and extreme tension, powerful emotions such as those only the family relationship can unfold. The story develops among the popular alleys of Naples, with all the symbolism and the imagery of the traditional and popular Naples that Gilliam could read, decode and reinterprete to the maximum of its contradictions.

The Wholly Family has been shot entirely on location in Naples, a city that turned out to be more an inspiring muse than a set to Terry Gilliam. The American-born and British-naturalized film director, also member of the Monty Python crew, declared on this regard: “Naples is chaos, and for this I love it. It feels to witness a crazy dance where everybody seems to know the rules”.

A great cast has been selected for The Wholly Family, led by emerging Italian film actress Cristiana Capotondi, with Douglas Dean, Nicolas Connolly and Sergio Solli also co-starring. There are also a few cameos for this Pasta Garofalo Production: the traditional puppet character of Punchinello (Pulcinella in Italian) is played by theatre director Renato De Maria while the puppets’ repair shop owner is played by Nico Cirasola.

The Wholly Family will premiere in Italy on May 25, after which the short film will be
broadcast on Italian TV and screened at selected theatres across Italy, before heading to film festivals worldwide. More news about the latest film from Terry Gilliam for Pasta Garofalo is available online at www.pastagarofalo.it

Some stills and behind-the-scenes pics are below.

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