{"id":580816,"date":"2026-08-26T11:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T11:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/580816\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T11:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T11:10:10","slug":"rai-cinema-international-boards-edoardo-de-angelis-fire-within-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/580816\/","title":{"rendered":"RAI Cinema International Boards Edoardo De Angelis’ ‘Fire Within You’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tRAI Cinema International Distribution has acquired world rights to Italian director Edoardo De Angelis<\/a>\u2018 dark tragicomedy \u201cThe Fire Within You\u201d ahead of its Venice competition launch.<\/p>\n

\n\tDe Angelis, a native Neapolitan, broke out on the festival circuit at Venice in 2016 with the Naples-set conjoined twins\u00a0drama \u201cIndivisible\u201d and subsequently opened the festival in 2023 with anti-war epic \u201cComandante.\u201d He also directed Netflix\u2019s Elena Ferrante adaptation \u201cThe Lying Life of Adults\u201d that year. He will now be back on the Lido vying for the Golden Lion with this more intimate piece, which revolves around the impact a toxic Neapolitan mother has on her progeny. The film is based on the prizewinning autobiographical book \u201cIl fuoco che ti porti dentro\u201d by Italian author and editor Antonio Franchini.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAntonio left Naples many years ago and built a successful career and family life in Milan,\u201d says the film\u2019s synopsis. \u201cHe escaped not only from his hometown, but also from his mother Angela, a woman extreme in both her virtues and flaws: irresistible, deeply opinionated, conservative and fiercely confrontational. Now she has arrived for Christmas and seems determined to stay. What begins as a Christmas Eve dinner soon turns into an emotional battlefield, at once comic and merciless, bringing years of misunderstandings, resentment and old wounds to the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe synopsis continues: \u201cA fierce emotional confrontation unfolds between mother and son, but also with a stubborn capon that refuses to end up in the cooking pot; with the anticipation of a daughter who may never arrive; and with a guest as distinguished as he is unexpected. This reckoning between mother and son will forever change the meaning of their relationship. It is a love that burns like an unquenchable fire \u2014 one that no distance and no separation can ever extinguish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Fire Within You\u201d is produced by Picomedia, an Asacha Media Group Company that is part of Fremantle, with RAI Cinema. Watch an exclusive first clip from the film above.<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, De Angelis speask to Variety about \u201cThe Fire Within You\u201d ahead of the film\u2019s Venice bow.<\/p>\n

\t\tHow did \u201cThe Fire Within You\u201d originate?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe author of the book, Antonio Franchini, is actually a very important editor in Italy. He was following me on the publication of the novel \u201cComandante,\u201d connected to my film. We had dinner in Naples, and Antonio told me about a book he was writing about his mother. I was immediately fascinated because I found so many similarities with my grandmother and with many women I\u2019ve met in my life. Women who are strong, charismatic, incendiary. He even told me the title and I thought it was very fitting to express the feeling they elicit. Then I read it when it came out and I loved it. But it didn\u2019t cross my mind that it could be made into a film. Then, when I found out that there was a producer who wanted to adapt it into a film, I felt the call of the wild. Because for me, to make a film, all you need is a strong character, like Angela. Obviously, then you have to build everything else. But you can make a film based on that, then the plot can be changed, the story can be rewritten.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat does Angela represent for you?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, first of all, I\u2019m fascinated by the misunderstanding surrounding the so-called archetype of the Neapolitan mother. The Italian mother who is a loving mother, a mother hen who cooks well. See, in this case, her cooking is shit. She hates her children and her grandchildren. In fact, she actually [almost] poisons them with what she cooks. And yet, this type of figure exists in the society that I grew up in: a matriarchal, male-dominated society. That seems like a bit of an oxymoron, but it\u2019s what I grew up with. It\u2019s a human, maternal land of many contradictions. But this type of [toxic] female figure is a widespread archetype even in other places and parts of the world. She\u2019s so strong, it\u2019s devastating. \u201cThe Fire Within You\u201d is the fire that Angela carries inside. If you distance yourself from it, you\u2019re nothing. Away from her heat, you freeze to death. If you come too close, you burn.<\/p>\n

\t\tTell me about working with Vanessa Scalera, who plays Angela.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI consider the experience of working with Scalera one of the most rewarding I\u2019ve ever had as a director. At first, we spent days rehearsing and studying each other, because I couldn\u2019t immediately decipher an artist like her. Then there was a moment that became a dividing line. It was when I said: \u201cVanessa, you\u2019re doing everything really well. But I want something else. I want you to let go; I want you to take me places you don\u2019t even know exist.\u201d Well, right after that, something happened between us on set. I wanted to experience how much the character\u2019s passion pushes her, and she doesn\u2019t even know where this will take her. It\u2019s so strong that it\u2019s like driving a car too fast. You don\u2019t have time to see the road; you don\u2019t see the curves; you\u2019re just going like a madman. Only a crash will stop you.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis was the experience of working with Vanessa. And she probably also found some common ground between her personal biography and this character. These are things that, if an actor wants to reveal to me (about themselves) I will keep them, so to speak, in a secret drawer. If she wants to be the one to say this, she will. Or maybe she won\u2019t. But, in short, I have reason to believe that she found some common ground between her biography and this character. Some common ground that allowed her to connect with her movements, mannerisms, attitudes and tics. But none of us really knew where we\u2019d end up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RAI Cinema International Distribution has acquired world rights to Italian director Edoardo De Angelis\u2018 dark tragicomedy \u201cThe Fire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[286160,156,409,111,139,69,218045,4900],"class_list":["post-580816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-edoardo-de-angelis","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rai-cinema-international-sales","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}