Benvenuti al Sud | |
---|---|
Directed by | Luca Miniero |
Produced by |
Marco Chimenz Francesca Longardi Giovanni Stabilini Riccardo Tozzi Oliver Berben Martin Moszkowicz |
Written by |
Dany Boon Alexandre Charlot Franck Magnier (Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis) Massimo Gaudioso |
Starring |
Claudio Bisio Alessandro Siani Angela Finocchiaro Valentina Lodovini Fulvio Falzarano |
Music by | Umberto Scipione |
Cinematography | Paolo Carnera |
Distributed by | Medusa Film |
Release date
|
|
Running time
|
106 minutes |
Country | Italy |
Language | Italian, Western Lombard, Neapolitan, French |
Benvenuti al Sud (English: Welcome to the South) is an Italian comedy film directed by Luca Miniero. The film has a sequel, Benvenuti al Nord.
Dany Boon appears in a cameo. It was dedicated to Angelo Vassallo, an Italian mayor murdered for his anti-crime campaign.
The plot is similar to that of the film Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis : the manager of a postal service (Poste Italiane) in northern Italy, near Milan, is banished to Castellabate, a town near Salerno in southern Italy, for two years.
Alberto Colombo, postmaster of Usmate Velate in Brianza, fails to obtain a transfer to Milan as precedence is given to a handicapped worker. So Alberto pretends to be paralyzed in order to get the coveted transfer, and thereby fulfill the desire of his wife Silvia to live in the capital of Lombardia and satisfy his own ambitions in life, including those he has for the future of his son Chicco, who would be able to study in an "American School" there. However, his deception is discovered when he himself gives the game away by standing up to greet the inspector sent to check the veracity of his claim to be physically handicapped in order to obtain the desired transfer. As a punishment, Alberto is thus transferred South to become postmaster of the provincial village of Castellabate - described in the movie as being near Naples.
Before he goes to the new destination, otherwise dismissal for serious responsibility, he informs himself about the conditions of life in the South with members of the Academy of the gorgonzola to which he belongs. Alberto is placed as a warning to all the problems adverse human and environmental (mafia, garbage in the streets, stifling heat), which will face the new site. All these warnings expressed by those in the South had already experienced, they simply raise concerns and precautions that the Director Lombard adopt with the help of his wife. After loading the car fire extinguishers, a sunscreen with a high protection, body armor, mousetraps, and have hidden the ' wedding ring of gold, and its clock value, Alberto and partly due to reach the new target work. The journey will be long, melancholy and haunting, at a steady pace so slow that it will exhibit at the risk of getting a fine for having obstructed the traffic, saved only by the mercy of the police officer who knew where he was going, he compares his situation to that of a brother military was sent into the Kosovo War. Following the instructions from navigation, then along a stretch of the busy Salerno-Reggio Calabria, being stuck in a long traffic jam. The trip ends late at night, when it reaches the village on the hill, greeted by pouring rain. A Castellabate, thanks to the postman Mattia and colleagues Mary Costabile Costabile small and great, having committed some events, Alberto ends up appreciating the beauty and the habits of the town of Campania, noting also a low crime rate, pleasant places, not too muggy and warm sympathy of the people, finally discovering that his ideas on the south were often only prejudices. In the quiet village but for the joy of having found new friends and the effort of trying to imitate the habits of the locals will have to contend with the often gruff and unyielding policeman of the place, and this will take a fine for having thrown its waste from the window or for breaking into a bar with the moped service, completely drunk.