Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 2002
Director Fatih Akin
Screenplay Ruth Toma
Director of Photography Rainer Klausmann
Editor Andrew Bird
Producer Hejo Emons, Stefan Schubert, Ralph Schwingel
Production Companies Wueste Film West, Cologne, Wueste Film, Hamburg, in co-production with Bavaria Film, Munich, Multimedia Film- und Fernsehproduktion, Hamburg, in cooperation with ARTE, Strasbourg, WDR, Cologne
Principal Cast Antonella Attili, Moritz Bleibtreu, Lucas Gregorowicz, Hermann Lause, Tiziana Lodato, Barnaby Metschurat, Gigi Savoia, Vincent Schiavelli, Patrycia Ziolkowska
Format 35 mm, color, 1:1.85
Original Version German/Italian
Subtitled Versions English
Sound Technology Dolby Digital
International Festival Screenings Hamburg 2002 (opening film)
With backing from Filmfoerderungsanstalt (FFA), FilmFoerderung Hamburg, Filmstiftung NRW, MEDIA
German Distributor X Verleih AG, Berlin
World Sales Bavaria Film International/Dept. of Bavaria Media GmbH
Release Date 7th November 2002
Official Site http://www.solino-derfilm.de
Solino = Little Sun in Italian language
Italy in the 1960s. One day Romano and Rosa, the parents of Gigi and Giancarlo, two young brothers, decide to leave their sun-drenched home in Apulia and move to Germany. In the gray industrial rust-belt they soon open the first pizza parlor of the neighborhood, adding a little spice to the local restaurant scene. While Romano is soon completely wrapped up in his role as restaurant owner, his wife Rosa, even after many years, continues to suffer from incurable homesickness.
And Gigi and Giancarlo? The two brothers make their own experience with their newfound freedom, with music, and with their first joint. But they will become rivals in their quest for love and success ? and each of them wants to be the first to answer the big question: What is really important in life?
To get to the point
It's the story of an Italian family who come to Germany in the 1960s and open the first pizzeria in the Ruhr region. With great humor and affection, the film chronicles three decades - from the sixties to the eighties - of the hopes and fears, successes, doubts and personal victories of the family members. The story is dominated by the conflict between the two brothers Gigi and Giancarlo for love and success and by the question of what is really important in life.
Moritz is Giancarlo Amato in this movie.
Fatih Akin was born in 1973 in Hamburg of Turkish parentage. He began studying Visual Communications at Hamburg's College of Fine Arts in 1994. His collaboration with Wueste Film also dates from this time. In 1995, he wrote and directed his first short feature, Sensin - You're The One! (Sensin - Du bist es!), which received the Audience Award at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival. His second short film, Weed (Getuerkt, 1996), received several national and international festival prizes. His first full length feature film, Short Sharp Shock (Kurz und schmerzlos, 1998) won the Bronze Leopard at Locarno and the Bavarian Film Award (Best Young Director) in 1998. His other films include: In July (Im Juli, 2000), Wir haben vergessen zurueckzukehren, 2001), and Solino (2002).
Initially, the producers had thought that they would have to go to Belgium to find the right locations to recreate the Ruhr region from the 1960s, but then ideal conditions were found in and around Duisburg to contrast with the atmospheric charm of the family's home town in southern Italy.
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