Support Cast:
Theresa Fonseca, Alvise Comozzi, Thuany Parente, Rafaelle Casuccio, Cassio Pandolfi, Nicola Cali, Alvaro Motta, Simon Petracchi, Pietro Barana, Marco Marfia, Isabella Marquezine e Barbara Gianazza
Losing her father, Cora, 18, travels with her grandmother to Italy. Arriving in Polignano a Mare, in the region of Apulia, where the Music Festival is taking place, she is enchanted by the event and Marcello Bianchini. Amid family problems, Cora knows love, admiration and a bitter side of life, for which she seeks answers. Live your rite of passage into adulthood.
DUETTO is set in 1965 in the Apulia, Italy, during a Music Festival, and tells the story of a meeting between Cora, a Brazilian teenager, and the famous and controversial Italian “cantautore”, Marcello Bianchini, hours before his death.
But the story begins in Sao Paulo. After her father’s tragic death in a car accident, Cora travels with her grandmother Lucia to her hometown in Apulia.
Lucia is going to meet her sister Sofia to talk about selling some family land. They haven’t seen each other for almost 40 years.
Between the family past, the dramas and stories of the Italian town, Cora will make her own way to maturity and adulthood.
DUETTO is a female picture. It has four main characters: Lucia and Cora Sofia and Isabel. Through the picture they will live and resolve their anguishes without the direct interference of male characters, even when they are protagonists in their relationships. Gino, Carlo and Marcelo’s, are fundamental in the plot and have great density, but the film exists because of the women.
DUETTO is as unexpected a picture. It is an unexpected picture not only because it is female (there are more and more of these, thankfully), but because it is adult, because it is not disposable. Less and less we reflect on our relationships, on love and death. It seems that we live in a time when the fragmentation of our increasingly digitally exposed life empties it in every sense. DUETTO does the opposite: starting from a family fracture, the betrayal, which is increasingly opening up, which is terrible and needs to be cured, it tries to understand and poetic consolidate why our greatest passions to the simplest gestures and everyday. All this is totally absurd. The picture is about this nonsense and incorporates nonsense into its syntax.
Lucia and Sofia, sisters in their 70s, have to find, through truth, forgiveness, reconciliation, overcoming what is for one betrayal and for another circumstance. Cora, adolescent, and her mother Isabel also need reconciliation, but otherwise, to accept what cannot be changed, what defines their existence as mother and daughter, widow and orphan.
Director Vicente Amorim
Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1966, he studied Economics at UFRJ and Cinema at UFF. He began his career as an assistant director of names such as Paul Mazurky and Hector Babenco. His first feature film, released in 2001, was the “2000 Nordestes” documentary, co-directed with David França Mendes – best documentary at the Miami Brazilian Film Festival and the first Brazilian film to receive the Unesco seal for its content. In 2008, he directed the fiction feature “A Good Man with” Viggo Mortensen, a picture considered by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the 10 best films of the year. He also directed the TV series “The Punisher” (TV Globo), “Copa Hotel” (GNT). “The Scoundrels” (GNT) and “Espinosa” (GNT). He also directed “Dulce” (2014) , “Motorrad” (2018) “Dirty Hearts” (2012) “The Path of the Clouds” (2003).
Nexus is a medium-sized production company, with the possibility of raising 24 million by Incentive Law. It is a production company that focuses on producing distinguished projects, where production values are evident. The quantity is not intended here, but artisanal care with each project.
Nexus produced the picture “Vera” by Sérgio Toledo (Silver Bear in Berlin, Best Actress in 1987); the documentary “Carandiru.doc”, directed by Rita Buzzar, and broadcasted by GNT (Pay TV Channel in Brazil) during the Prime Time; “Olga”, directed by Jayme Monjardim and based on the book written by Fernando Morais, Brazilian Oscar candidate in 2004, and a blockbuster, with over three million viewers in theaters and over 100,000 DVDs sold. Nexus produced also the successful international coproduction “Budapest”, based on the homonymous novel by Chico Buarque, and directed by Walter Carvalho. Nexus produced also produced the picture (over 800,000 viewers) and the series “The Time and the Wind”, which scored an average of 29 ratings between January 2, 3, and 4, 2014.
In 2016, Nexus produced the thriller “The Caretaker” distributed by Europa Filmes and MGM, released in June 2016 on the Brazilian theatrical circuit, and on December 2nd in the USA.
Now Nexus is post producing the picture “Duetto”, shot and Brazil and Italy; and it is preparing the pictures “Madame Durocher” and “Por Um Fio”, based on Dráuzio Varella‘s book.
Rita Buzzar has a unique portfolio: she studied script in Cuba with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She also studied screenwriting at the Sundance Institute in Utah. She wrote great hits as the pictures “Olga” and “Budapest”.
Between 1985 and 2002, she worked on television, being the author of the hits “Rosa dos Rumos” and The “Story of Ana Raio and Zé Trovão”. He also directed and produced documentaries for TV Cultura, and wrote specials for TV Globo;
As a producer, she is responsible for the following projects:
“Carandiru.doc” (2003), documentary;
“Olga” (2004), which reached over three million spectators and won the Havana festival in 2004;
“Budapest” (2008), four nominations for the Grand Prize of Brazilian Cinema;
“The Time and the Wind” (2013), an epic directed by Jayme Monjardim that became mini series on Globo network;
“The Caretaker” (2016), thriller movie distributed by MGM;
“Duetto” (2019), drama, shot in Brazil and Italy;
“Madame Durocher” (under development) partnered with Elo Company;
“Por Um Fio” (in preparation) based on Dráuzio Varella’s book.
João Segall has a degree in cinema from FAAP. He is a Brazilian producer and screenwriter, and partner of Producer Company Urano Films, which produced between 2012 and 2018 three feature films and five short films that circulated at international festivals. In 2016, he released his first film as screenwriter, in partnership with Nexus Cinema. “The Caretaker” – horror movie – directed by Julio Santi, released in theaters in Brazil and the USA. In 2016-2017, he was the Executive Producer of the feature film “Boni Bonita”, written and directed by Daniel Barosa, starring Caco Ciocler and Ailín Salas. It premiered at the Mar Del Plata International Film Festival in November 2018.
As a screenwriter, he also wrote “Duetto”, which was shot this year in Brazil and Italy, directed by Vicente Amorim. The picture is in the editing and finishing phase.
Marieta Severo has received the Oscarito Award for her 37 years of career dedicated to Brazilian cinema and has over 30 films under her belt. In “Duetto” Marieta Severo plays Lucia.
Giancarlo Giannini winner of the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for the feature film “Love and Anarchy”, and an Academy Award nominee for her performance in “Pasqualino Sete Belezas”, both by Lina Wertmüller. In DUETTO, Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini plays Gino and forms with his countryman Elisabetta de Palo (from the series “My Brilliant Friend” e “Suburra”) and with Brazilian actresses Marieta Severo and Luisa Arraes, the protagonist quartet.
Italian actress Elisabetta de Palo, who played Elena in HBO’s successfull series “My brilliant friend”, and Netflix’s “Suburra: Blood in Rome”. In “Duetto”, she plays Sofia and shares scenes with Marieta Severo and Giancarlo Giannini.
A atriz Luisa Arraes, estreou profissionalmente em pequena participação no filme “Lisbela e o Prisioneiro”, dirigido pelo seu pai, Guel Arraes.
Em sua primeira novela viveu, a romântica Laís Pimenta, em “Babilônia”, na TV Globo, no horário nobre.
Porém, a sua estreia na TV foi mesmo na série, “Louco Por Elas”, também pela TV Globo. Luisa tem em seu currículo seis novelas pela mesma emissora e com “Duetto”, chega ao décimo primeiro trabalho no cinema brasileiro.
The Italian actor Michele Morrone, has participated in many successful TV series and dramas.
His debut took place in 2013 in “Come a Dolphin 2” alongside Raoul Bova and then appeared in: “What God Helps Us 3”, “Try Again Prof! 6”, and “Anti-Mafia”. In 2017, he achieved notoriety thanks to the role of newt Ares, which played on the television series “Sirene”. In “Duetto”, he plays Marcello Bianchinni and shares the scene with Luisa Arraes.
Gabriel Leone, played Roberto Carlos, with youth and delicacy, in the movie “Erasmo Carlos My Fame of Mal”, which opened in theaters in the first half of 2019. He began his career at 16, and since his debut on TV Globo with the 23:00 soap opera, “Secret Truths” (2015), has never stopped working on major TV hits, such as “Velho Chico” (2016), in the series “The Days Were So” (2017), “Jailers ” (2018),“ Where The Strong Are Born ”(2018) and in “Duetto”, Gabriel enriches the scenes alongside the protagonist Luisa Arraes.
Maeve Jinkings, premiered on television in 2015 in the soap opera, “The Rule of the Game” by TV Globo, but it is in movies that she underpins her career with great characters. Maeve has more than 15 films under her belt, and it was in Renata Pinheiro’s “Love, Plastic and Noise”, and also in Gabriel Mascaro’s “Boi Neon” movie, which she took the best actress awards.
At the Brazilian Film Grand Prix festival, Maeve received the award for best supporting actress, for the performance of Ana Paula, daughter of the protagonist Clara, played by Sônia Braga, in the picture “Aquárius”, by Kleber Mendonça Filho.
Rodrigo Lombardi, currently plays Adriano, the protagonist of the hit TV Globo series, “Carcereiros”. He has more than 10 soap operas in his curriculum. In “Duetto”, he was invited to make a special guest participation, sharing the scene with Maeve Jinkings and Luisa Arraes.
Marieta Severo
Lucia, played by actress Marieta Severo, is 70 years old. An austere and strong, sensitive woman. Italian but resident in Brazil since her 22 years. She left Polignano A Mare 40 years earlier because of old family problems. Blaming Isabel for her son, who was everything for her death, she travels back to Italy to solve a land problem. And these old family problems will resurface.
Giancarlo Giannini
Gino, played by the Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini, is 70 years old, a very charming man, husband of Sofia. He was born in a family of Apulia workers. Gradually, since he married Sofia, he has taken over the restaurant with great competence. He is a very dedicated man and loves Sofia madly. She is the great love of his life.
Elisabetta de Palo
Sofia, played by the Italian actress Elisabetta de Palo, is 66 years old. She was extremely beautiful in her youth and is still a beautiful woman. She fell madly in love with Gino and married him when she was still a teeneger. As she was sterile, she could not give a child to Gino and eventually adopted Carlo, the son of a couple of friends, when he was orphaned. She is an excellent cook and she is the one who exquisitely touches the kitchen of “Spina di Pesce”, a restaurant that belonged to her parents. Lucia thinks Sofia has always been the favorite daughter.
Luisa Arraes
Sofia, played by the Italian actress Elisabetta de Palo, is 66 years old. She was extremely beautiful in her youth and is still a beautiful woman. She fell madly in love with Gino and married him when she was still a teeneger. As she was sterile, she could not give a child to Gino and eventually adopted Carlo, the son of a couple of friends, when he was orphaned. She is an excellent cook and she is the one who exquisitely touches the kitchen of “Spina di Pesce”, a restaurant that belonged to her parents. Lucia thinks Sofia has always been the favorite daughter.
Michele Morrone
Marcello Bianchini, played by the Italian actor Michele Morrone, is 29 years old. He is a self-taught and played various instruments. He is also a cantautore (author of the songs he sang). At the same time, he makes romantic (beautiful) songs, he criticizes a certain caricatured romanticism of Italian romantic music of the 1960s and the music industry itself.
Gabriel Leone
Carlo, played by actor Gabriel Leone, is a 20 years old, orphaned at age of 10, when his parents died in a car accident. Sofia and Gino took care of him and then took over his guard. The loss of his parents is similar to the loss of Marcelo by Cora and it will be important for building empathy between them. He helps as a waiter at the family restaurant, but his dream is to be a photographer. So as an amateur paparazzo he wants to take the big picture of the 1965 Music Festival, and get some money and chance in the competitive market.
Maeve Jinkings
Isabel, played by actress Maeve Jinkings, is 37 years old. She is a brunette beauty and is extremely dedicated to her daughter Cora. She saw her pregnancy as possibility to be with Marcelo, even knowing that he did not love her. She had the dream that would gradually conquer him. She always felt that Lucia didn’t like her.
Rodrigo Lombardi
Marcelo, played by the actor Rodrigo Lombardi, is 45 years old. A handsome and a ladies’ man. His dream was to have been a musician, but he eventually got Isabel pregnant and had to marry her. He doesn’t love her and has a affair. He was extremely protected by his mother, Lucia, and today manages the family’s Italian restaurant in Sao Paulo. He is quite impulsive, but in a restrained and tense way.
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The feature film team, DUETTO, started filming on 03/23/2019 in Brazil and finished on 04/28/2019, and from 05/05/2019 to 09/05/2019 filmed in the region of Apulia - Italy.