Italo-Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek, whose latest film Saturno contro (Saturn in Opposition) wil have its international premiere at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival next week, is currently in preproduction on Un giorno perfetto (A Perfect Day), an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Melania Mazzucco. The film promises to be a departure for the Rome-based director, as it is the first film Ozpetek has not co-written with his writing and producing partner Gianni Romoli. Un giorno perfetto was in fact written by prolific Italian screenwriter Sandro Petraglia, who co-wrote, amongst others, the local blockbusters La meglio gioventù (The Best of Youth), Romanzo Criminale (Crime Novel) and the recent Cannes Un certain regard entry Il mio fratelle è figlio unico (My Brother is an Only Child). 

Like Ozpetek's Saturno contro, however, the story named after the Lou Reed song is an ensemble piece set in the Italian capital. Un giorno perfetto is described as a kaleidoscopic look at many characters in Rome: Camilla celebrates her seventh birthday; Zero detonates the first bomb in a McDonald's outlet; Emma loses her job and Kevin his underwear; Elio gives the wrong speech at an electoral meeting; Valentina has her belly button pierced; Maja finds the house of her dreams; Antonio sees his wife for the last time and someone loads his gun with seven bullets."Victims and assassins share the same space in the same city," the description of the novel reads, "though this is no thriller".

Ozpetek has said that the tone of the work is very different from his own, which will make the film a real challenge for the Istanbul-born director: "In my characters there is always a ray of hope, while in this story everything is just really tough". The director has announced that in his adaptation one of the female characters in the novel will be changed into a male, while one character that does not exist in the novel has been added. No word yet on who might be cast, though production is scheduled to start in Rome in October.

(source: ansa, via cinecittà news)