Director Ferzan Ozpetek’s family comedy lifts the lid on a multigenerational household coming to terms with a rapidly modernising world, and the broadening social acceptance that comes with it.
Tommaso is the youngest child in the large, eccentric Cantone family who own a pasta factory in Puglia: his mother Stefania is loving but suffocated by bourgeois conventions; his father Vincenzo has unrealistically high expectations of his children; his aunt Luciana is an eccentric; his sister Elena a frustrated housewife; his brother Antonio works with their father at the pasta factory; and then there is his rebellious grandmother, trapped in the memory of an impossible love.
Tommaso, an aspiring writer, has come home from Rome for an important family dinner at which his father will hand over the management of the pasta factory to him and his brother. Determined to assert his own personal choices, Tommaso plans to announce at the dinner that he is gay. But that evening, just as he begins to say “silence please”, he is upstaged by his brother who, to Tommaso’s surprise, and everyone else’s shock, reveals his own secret! Vincenzo orders Antonio out of the house, kicking him out of the family and the factory. He then collapses from a heart attack and the family is overwrought.
Tommaso reluctantly steps in to run the factory but despite his growing affection for gorgeous new business partner Alba, and the wise words of his grandmother, his heart isn’t in it. He misses his friends and his life in Rome, but how can he come out now and risk damaging his father’s health further? A surprise visit from his friends forces the family secrets to the surface with other surprise revelations in this warm, uplifting and moving comedy.
Ferzan Ozpetek (Director and Co-writer) was born in Istanbul in 1959. He moved to Italy to study and began his film career as an assistant director with Massimo Troisi, Ricky Tognazzi, Francesco Nuti and Sergio Citti amongst others. Ozpetek’s directorial debut was in 1997 with Hamam (The Turkish Bath) which was presented at Quinzaine des Realisateurs at Cannes and was an international success. Other well known films include Le Fate Ignoranti (The Ignorant Fairies), La Finestra di Fronte, Saturno Contro and Un Giorno Perfetto which was in competition at Venice in 2008. Loose Cannons was presented at the Panorama section at the 60th Berlin Film Festival as well as the Tribeca Film Festival 2010, getting special recognition by the jury. In December 2008, Ferzan Ozpetek was one of the few Italian directors to be offered a retrospective by MOMA in New York.
Ferzan Ozpetek (Director and Co-writer) was born in Istanbul in 1959. He moved to Italy to study and began his film career as an assistant director with Massimo Troisi, Ricky Tognazzi, Francesco Nuti and Sergio Citti amongst others. Ozpetek’s directorial debut was in 1997 with Hamam (The Turkish Bath) which was presented at Quinzaine des Realisateurs at Cannes and was an international success. Other well known films include Le Fate Ignoranti (The Ignorant Fairies), La Finestra di Fronte, Saturno Contro and Un Giorno Perfetto which was in competition at Venice in 2008. Loose Cannons was presented at the Panorama section at the 60th Berlin Film Festival as well as the Tribeca Film Festival 2010, getting special recognition by the jury. In December 2008, Ferzan Ozpetek was one of the few Italian directors to be offered a retrospective by MOMA in New York.
