THE HAND OF GOD

Director: Paolo Sorrentino

Screenwriter: Paolo Sorrentino

Cast: Filippo Scotti, Toni Servillo, Teresa Saponangelo, Marlon Jouber.

 

Don’t miss the fourth of five International Feature Picture Oscar nominees to screen at Cinestudio (along with Flee, Drive My Car and The Worst Person in the World)! Italy’s selection is a film memoir by Paolo Sorrentino (Youth, A Great Beauty) – and it’s by far the most personal of his work so far. 1980s Naples is a vibrant, colorful, but still poor city, where every hope is centered on Argentinian star Diego Maradona, the new addition to the Naples football team who will cover them in glory. Young Fabletto revels in the excitement, walking Naples’ narrow streets, suddenly aware of the seductive appeal of the opposite sex. In European football lore, “The Hand of God” was an amazing play by Diego Maradona, – but in Sorrentino’s film, it also refers to a unexpected tragic event that instantly ends the idyll of his boyhood. Only his love of movies has a chance of lifting him out of the deep hole of hopelessness.

“hilarious, heartbreaking and remarkable for its buoyancy and grace. It’s a film from the hand of a master.” Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal.