OPENING NIGHT A construction worker, married with two kids, faces a devastating blow in this powerful character portrait. Desperately needing money to support his family, the genial, if casually xenophobic, Claudio (Elio Germano, in a performance that won him the Best Actor prize at Cannes) manipulates his boss for a promotion and borrows money from a loan shark to finance his own project. With a compact script and a camera style that evokes remarkable intimacy, Luchetti deftly details the complications and disasters of Claudio’s life while also offering a compelling social critique of building standards and immigrant labor in present-day Rome. Besides Germano, Our Life also features notable performances by Italian cinema luminaries Raoul Bova and Luca Zingaretti.


La nostra vita, Italy/France 2010, 98 min. Written by Sandro Petraglia, Stefano Rulli, Daniele Luchetti. Photographed by Claudio Collepiccolo. With Elio Germano, Raoul Bova, Isabella Ragonese, Luca Zingaretti, Stefania Montorsi. In Italian with subtitles. Celluloid Dreams.