Director, producer and writer Donato Rotunno’s third feature film, IO STO BENE (I Am Fine) focuses on the life of Antonio, a man who has spent his whole life away from his home country ofItaly. Antonio is facing down his own mortality when he crosses paths with Leo, a young Italian artist who is trying to make it abroad. The old man and the young woman’s destinies mirror each other. Memories from the past are awoken and end up offering a more peaceful future to the both of them. This multi-layered film follows Antonio Spinelli growing up with Vito, his cousin of the same age, and their friend Giuseppe. At the end of the 1960s, pushed out of South Italy by a catastrophic economic situation, they decide to leave the country to work abroad. What’s initially supposed to be a short stay to make ends meet will end up determining their individual paths. While Vito works in Belgium and Giuseppe in Germany, Antonio is the only one who goes to a little country called Luxembourg. There, he meets Mady, who becomes his continued support and gives him the strength to be who he really is. Leopoldina prefers to be called Leo. She has finished her graphic design studies and dreams of an artistic career where she could mix graphic design creations and music. She wants to take her future in her own hands and make a living out of her passion. That’s why she decides to leave Italy with her boyfriend and dreams of going on tour all over Europe to perform in clubs as a visual jockey. But they break up and Leo’s boyfriend goes back to Italy, leaving Leo on her own in Luxembourg. She hasn’t told him that she is pregnant. Director and writer Donato Rotunno joins us for a conversation on his affinity for complex stories that illuminate many of the basic truths about love, family, friends and the capricious outcome of the paths we choose to follow.
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About the director – Donato Rotunno was born in Luxembourg in 1966 and graduated from IAD in Belgium in 1992. He founded Tarantula Luxembourg in 1995, through which, to date, he has produced over 30 feature films. His career as a film director started with his graduation film Nebbiolo Rosso and continued with documentaries on specific themes to Luxembourg, including immigration (Terra Mia Terra Nostra, Les Mesures du rectangle), multi cultural society (Blà Blä Blá) ; questionning the role of politics with André et les voix dissidentes, and the relationship between contemporary art and film through Making of a picture, Landscape with a corpse, Dreams have a language. His first fiction film, In a Dark Place, won the award for best artistic contribution at the Lëtzebuerger Filmpräis in 2007. His second film, Baby(a)lone, an adaptation of the novel Amok by Tullio Forgiarini, was selected in many international film festivals and was chosen to represent Luxembourg at the 88th Academy Awards for Best foreign language film award. Io sto bene is his 3rd feature.