Following on from his mightily impressive debut feature, The Wind Blows Round, given its world premiere at the LFF in 2005, Giorgio Diritti returns with this larger scale World War Two drama. Set, like the previous film, within a remote community – this time the farms, villages and countryside outside Bologna – The Man Who Will Come depicts, with lyrical simplicity and austerely beautiful images, the rhythms of life and work in a culture largely unchanged for centuries. Gradually, though, the reality of war begins to impinge as Germans arrive and fighting between the soldiers and partisans (located nearby and hidden within the community) escalates. Inexorably, the settled world of the community begins to disintegrate, and is eventually destroyed in a sad, savage and shocking climax. Based on real events, including a massacre of ordinary citizens in these farming communities, The Man Who Would Come is an original, engrossing and very moving film, that confirms Giorgio Diritti as a major filmmaker in contemporary Italian cinema. —BFI

Director

Giorgio Diritti

Director, screenwriter and editor Giorgio Diritti was born in Bologna on December 21, 1959. His formative experiences in filmmaking included working beside various Italian filmmakers, but in particular PupiAvati, with whom he collaborated on various films. He organized several castings for films in Emilia Romagna, including Fellini’s The Voice of The Moon (La voce dellaluna, 1990). He worked with Ipotesi Cinema, an institute founded and directed by ErmannoOlmi, which organizes training for young filmmakers. He also contributed to documentaries, short films and television series as writer and director. In the world of cinema, his first short film Cappello da marinaio (1990) was shown in competition at numerous international film festivals, including at Clermont-Ferrand. In 1993 he made Quasi un Anno, a TV movie produced by Ipotesi Cinema and Italian state broadcaster Rai 1. His debut feature film, Il ventofailsuogiro (2005) was shown at over 60 national and international film festivals… read more