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RAI Cinema International Distribution has acquired world rights to Italian director Edoardo De Angelis’ dark tragicomedy “The Fire Within You” ahead of its Venice competition launch.
De Angelis, a native Neapolitan,
broke out on the festival circuit at Venice in 2016 with the Naples-set conjoined twins drama “Indivisible” and subsequently opened the festival in 2023 with anti-war epic “Comandante.” He also directed Netflix’s Elena Ferrante adaptation “The Lying Life of Adults” that year. He will now be back on the Lido vying for the Golden Lion with this more intimate piece, which revolves around the impact a toxic Neapolitan mother has on her progeny. The film is based on the prizewinning autobiographical book “Il fuoco che ti porti dentro” by Italian author and editor Antonio Franchini.
“Antonio left Naples many years ago and built a successful career and family life in Milan,” says the film’s synopsis. “He escaped not only from his hometown, but also from his mother Angela, a woman extreme in both her virtues and flaws: irresistible, deeply opinionated, conservative and fiercely confrontational. Now she has arrived for Christmas and seems determined to stay. What begins as a Christmas Eve dinner soon turns into an emotional battlefield, at once comic and merciless, bringing years of misunderstandings, resentment and old wounds to the surface.”
The synopsis continues: “A fierce emotional confrontation unfolds between mother and son, but also with a stubborn capon that refuses to end up in the cooking pot; with the anticipation of a daughter who may never arrive; and with a guest as distinguished as he is unexpected. This reckoning between mother and son will forever change the meaning of their relationship. It is a love that burns like an unquenchable fire — one that no distance and no separation can ever extinguish.”
“The Fire Within You” is produced by Picomedia, an Asacha Media Group Company that is part of Fremantle, with RAI Cinema. Watch an exclusive first clip from the film above.
Below, De Angelis speask to Variety about “The Fire Within You” ahead of the film’s Venice bow.
How did “The Fire Within You” originate?
The author of the book, Antonio Franchini, is actually a very important editor in Italy. He was following me on the publication of the novel “Comandante,” connected to my film. We had dinner in Naples, and Antonio told me about a book he was writing about his mother. I was immediately fascinated because I found so many similarities with my grandmother and with many women I’ve met in my life. Women who are strong, charismatic, incendiary. He even told me the title and I thought it was very fitting to express the feeling they elicit. Then I read it when it came out and I loved it. But it didn’t cross my mind that it could be made into a film. Then, when I found out that there was a producer who wanted to adapt it into a film, I felt the call of the wild. Because for me, to make a film, all you need is a strong character, like Angela. Obviously, then you have to build everything else. But you can make a film based on that, then the plot can be changed, the story can be rewritten.
What does Angela represent for you?
Well, first of all, I’m fascinated by the misunderstanding surrounding the so-called archetype of the Neapolitan mother. The Italian mother who is a loving mother, a mother hen who cooks well. See, in this case, her cooking is shit. She hates her children and her grandchildren. In fact, she actually [almost] poisons them with what she cooks. And yet, this type of figure exists in the society that I grew up in: a matriarchal, male-dominated society. That seems like a bit of an oxymoron, but it’s what I grew up with. It’s a human, maternal land of many contradictions. But this type of [toxic] female figure is a widespread archetype even in other places and parts of the world. She’s so strong, it’s devastating. “The Fire Within You” is the fire that Angela carries inside. If you distance yourself from it, you’re nothing. Away from her heat, you freeze to death. If you come too close, you burn.
Tell me about working with Vanessa Scalera, who plays Angela.
I consider the experience of working with Scalera one of the most rewarding I’ve ever had as a director. At first, we spent days rehearsing and studying each other, because I couldn’t immediately decipher an artist like her. Then there was a moment that became a dividing line. It was when I said: “Vanessa, you’re doing everything really well. But I want something else. I want you to let go; I want you to take me places you don’t even know exist.” Well, right after that, something happened between us on set. I wanted to experience how much the character’s passion pushes her, and she doesn’t even know where this will take her. It’s so strong that it’s like driving a car too fast. You don’t have time to see the road; you don’t see the curves; you’re just going like a madman. Only a crash will stop you.
This was the experience of working with Vanessa. And she probably also found some common ground between her personal biography and this character. These are things that, if an actor wants to reveal to me (about themselves) I will keep them, so to speak, in a secret drawer. If she wants to be the one to say this, she will. Or maybe she won’t. But, in short, I have reason to believe that she found some common ground between her biography and this character. Some common ground that allowed her to connect with her movements, mannerisms, attitudes and tics. But none of us really knew where we’d end up.
