April = Aprile

Nanni Moretti prefers a personal approach to filmmaking and incorporates part biography and intuition to inform his style. Using mostly untrained and non-professional actors (his real-life wife, son and mother play as themselves), Moretti captures an innocence and infectious quality in his actors. In Aprile, Moretti is a filmmaker keen to document the upcoming national elections in a way that he can say what he feels, whilst not pandering to any polical party. To complicate things his wife is due to give birth to their first child on the night of the elections. The filmmaking process becomes more entwined with Moretti’s notions of raising a family. The chaos of raising the child then serves as a metaphor for creative process and as we watch this develop throughout the film we experience the maturation of the filmmakers vision. Often touted as the Woody Allen of Italy, Moretti’s similar style of storytelling, with his (sometimes) vague and philosophical musings, enable a rare glimpse into the ‘local’ spirit of contemporary Italy. In Italian with English subtitles.