‘Land’ Producer Ginevra Elkann Set for Directorial Debut With ‘Magari’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Italian indie producer Ginevra Elkann, who is at the Berlinale with Panorama entry “Land,” is set to make her directorial debut with ”Magari,” a coming-of-age pic set in Paris and Rome which will be produced by Wildside, the Italian production company controlled by FremantleMedia.
Elkann has shepherded several standout festival titles through her Asmara Films shingle, including Noaz Deshe’s Swahili-language drama “White Shadow,” which won the Venice Film Festival’s Lion of the Future award. Elkann studied directing at the London Film School, where she met helmer Babak Jalali, whose new film “Land” is about Lakota Sioux living on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota and their problems with alcohol. “Land” is being sold at the EFM by France’s Bac Films.
“Magari” – which can be translated as “I Wish” in English – will be “about kids of divorced parents who live in Paris and come visit their father in Rome,” said Elkann, adding that the film will be in both French and Italian.
Elkann has written the script with Italian screen and fiction writer Chiara Barzini, author of English-language novel “Things That Happened Before the Earthquake.” “It’s clearly partly autobiographical, but not completely,” said Elkann who is a granddaughter of former Fiat automaker chief Gianni Agnelli.
“Every child who has divorced parents, which is a lot of children nowadays, feels a disconnect,” added Elkann, whose own parents split up when she was 3 years old. “The difficulty in adapting to the life of their parents…How you deal with that? And how your parents deal with that?”
Wildside is in talks with a French co-producer on the project. The plan is to start shooting “Magari” by year’s end in Rome, Paris, and Sabaudia, a seaside town near the Italian capital.
Elkann previously directed a short titled “Vado a Messa,” which screened at Venice. She also served as an assistant to Bernardo Bertolucci on his 1998 intimate drama “Besieged.” She plans to continue producing.
Elkann was one of Variety’s 10 Europeans to Watch in 2015.
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