The 1980s: Aldo and Vanda’s marriage falls apart when Aldo falls in love with a young woman called Lidia.
Today: Thirty years later, Aldo and Vanda are still together. LACCI explores the damage caused by a painful separation, but most of all the damage caused by getting back together, and the consequences these events have on their children, Anna and Sandro, even thirty years later. It is a mystery of emotions, an investigation into the lack of love and what the angry war between parents can lead to.

Direction: Daniele Luchetti

Script: Daniele Luchetti, Domenico Starnone, Francesco Piccolo

Production: Giuseppe Caschetto

Co-Production: Paolo Del Brocco

Cinematography: Ivan Casalgrandi

Editing: Daniele Luchetti, Ael Dallier Vega

Production Design: Andrea Castorina

Costume Design: Massimo Cantini Parrini

Make-Up: Andrea Becagli, Daniele Fiori

Sound: Carlo Missidenti

Visual Effects: Mauro Geldi

Cast: Alba Rhorwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Adriano Giannini, Linda Caridi

Original Title: LACCI

Original Language: Italian

Film Production Country: Italy

Statement of the Director/s
When I first read Domenico Starnone's “Lacci” (Ties), I found questions that concerned me and characters with whom it was easy to identify.
Through a family story that covers thirty years, two generations, ties that are more like barbed wire than the bonds of love, you finish reading the book with one question in mind: have you allowed your life to be governed by love?
THE TIES is a film on the secret forces that bind us.
Love is not the only thing that unites people, there is also what remains when love is gone. People can stay together out of resentment, shame, or dishonour, in a mad attempt to keep their promises. THE TIES speaks about the damage that love causes when it makes us suddenly change route and, even worse, the damage it inflicts when it abandons us.
For some time now, above all as a viewer, I have realised that what interests me in a story are relationships. For this reason, every time I find myself dealing with these themes as a director, I am unable to betray what forms the basis of my passion.
Relationships, whether they are more explicitly set against the background of a social or political context, or contained in a private and circumscribed space, are a way of narrating not simply ourselves, but ourselves in the times in which we live.
With Francesco Piccolo and Domenico Starnone, we wrote a screenplay that was not afraid of words, indeed of talking. For this reason, while filming, I opted for very clean sound, without disturbances, reminiscent of classic cinema, because almost everything in the film passes through the voices of the characters.
On this journey, I wanted to be accompanied by actors I love. With some it was a happy reunion, with others a very happy first time. I tormented them by keeping the camera close, to dig deep into their reactions, treating their faces as landscapes to explore.
I used to think that the camera was the centre of my work. Now I realise that what we can create in the work between script, director and actor turns my priorities upside down. I am not looking for perfection in the actors' work: I am looking for gaps, distractions, some truth. I sometimes tell them, as a joke, that I am an imperfectionist director. The result I prefer is the unexpected one, which takes me by surprise, and this happens when you have actors who are accessible, who trust you. Having the actor at the centre means keeping our eyes fixed on our emotions, that is, everything we have. Relationships are recounted to try to put order between the gaps in our lives, to understand them better and to delude ourselves that they can be understood, accepted, resolved.
Lately we feared that the cinema might die out. And instead, during quarantine, it has given us comfort, like a light burning in a cave. Today we have an additional awareness: films, series, novels, are indispensable in our lives. And so long live the festivals, which allow us all to celebrate together the true meaning of our work. If anyone thought that making films was useless, they now know that it is good for everyone. With THE TIES I am honoured to open the ball of the first big festival of an unforeseen age.

Biography of the Director/s
Born in Rome in 1960, Daniele Luchetti is a director and screenwriter.
He studied Literature and the History of Art and attended the Gaumont film school, where he shot NEI DINTORNI DI MEZZANOTTE, part of the collective movie JUKE BOX (1985) that groups the short films made by the course's students.
His feature debut, IT'S HAPPENING TOMORROW (1988), was selected out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival (where it received a special Caméra d’Or commendation) and won the David di Donatello award for Best First Film.

Filmography of the Director/s
2020 - THE TIES
2019 - MOMENTI DI TRASCURABILE FELICITA
2018 - IO SONO TEMPESTA
2016 - CHIAMATEMI FRANCESCO, tv series
2015 - CHIAMATEMI FRANCESCO - IL PAPA DELLA GENTE
2013 - THOSE HAPPY YEARS
2010 - LA NOSTRA VITA
2008 - ALL HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL (segment "la lettera")
2007 - MY BROTHER IS AN ONLY CHILD
2003 - GINGER AND CINNAMON
1998 - LITTLE TEACHERS
1996 - RITRATTI D'AUTORE, tv series
1995 - LA SCUOLA
1994 - L'UNICO PAESE AL MONDO, short
1993 - THE STORM IS COMING
1991 - THE YES MAN
1990 - THE WEEK OF THE SPHINX)
1988 - IT'S HAPPENING TOMORROW
1985 - JUKE BOX   

Awards Won
Venice International Film Festival: RB Casting Award

Production Company:
IBC Movie
Giuseppe Caschetto
Viale XII giugno, 26
Bologna, 40124, Italy
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +39 051 339 77 11
Website: http://www.itc2000.it/cinema/

Rai Cinema
Paolo Del Brocco
Piazza Adriana 12
Roma , 00195, Italy
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +39 06 331 79 601
Website: http://www.raicinema.rai.it/

World Sales:
MK2
Anne Laure Barbarit
55, rue Traversière
Paris, 75012, France
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: + 33 1 44 67 31 11
Website: http://www.mk2films.com/

Press:
Gabriele Barcaro
Gabriele Barcaro
Via Germanico 172
Roma, 00192, Italy
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +39 340 553 8425