Sardinian Sheep Herder inspires Milani’s New Film
TORONTO – Just two years ago, Paola Cortellesi’s empowering tragicomedy – and debut film – There’s Still Tomorrow opened the Rome Film Festival to a thunderous reception. Cortellesi took home the Special Jury Prize, the Audience Award and a Special Mention for Best First Feature, all of which helped to catapult her film past the box office juggernauts Barbie and Oppenheimer. Cortellesi’s black and white film about a post-war working-class woman broke records after opening Rome’s Festival, and her husband Riccardo Milani is hoping for a similar result this year.
Milani’s new film La Vita Va Così has been selected as the opener for Rome Film Festival’s 20th edition, which runs from October 15th to the 26th. Milani however, is no debutant.
A veteran of nearly 30 years, he started as an assistant director in 1985 and eventually debuted with his Dramedy Auguri Professore in 1997. And thematic traces of that film, about a jaded professor who finds inspiration from an unlikely student, are found in his latest work.
La Vita Va Così is “a passionate and humorous twenty-year story set in a wonderful corner of Sardinia, where a community finds itself torn between the dream of employment and defending its territory and identity”.
A Sardinian community essentially learns that economic progress threatens their identity and way of life. While Milani’s films are socially conscious in nature, as is the case with La Vita Va Così, they’re never without a touch of irony.
But Milani’s narrative for this film is also inspired by a Sardinian shepherd, Ovidio Marras, who gained international attention after blocking a large-scale tourist development which threatened his land and surrounding coastline.
He litigated with a $150m resort project to stop them from building on a road which served his properties – and won. Marras passed away in 2024 at the age of 94 but his court battle left his family the land as it was.
Marras’ story and the Sardinian setting seem an appropriate backdrop and microcosm [of Italy] to explore Milani’s trademark themes of community and identity – against the struggle to grow economically. Sardinia’s GDP per capita is below both the Italian and EU averages.
Mainly because the region’s low productivity is tied to an overreliance on agriculture and public administration, which struggle to integrate young skilled workers into the economy.
La Vita Va Così is written by Riccardo Milani and Michele Astori, and features a cast that includes, among others, Virginia Raffaele, Diego Abatantuono, Aldo Baglio, Giuseppe Ignazio Loi and Geppi Cucciari. The film is produced by Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Mieli for Our Films.
The film will be presented out of competition in the Grand Public section.
Images courtesy of Our Films (scene from “La Vita Va Così” and a photo with Milani and Ovidio Marras)
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
