Director Luca Guadagnino attended the 79th Locarno Film Festival to promote Ketticè, the second feature film from writer-director Giovanni Tortorici. The production marks Guadagnino’s involvement as a producer on the project, which stars Salvatore Gallina, Rachele Testagrossa, and Monica Bellucci.
The coming-of-age drama is set in Palermo, Sicily in 2012 and centers on Giulio, a 16-year-old characterized by listlessness and lack of direction. His life shifts when he meets Ketty, a more confident peer, and the two form a friendship described as providing mutual refuge from adult scrutiny. Bellucci portrays Giulio’s mother, an aristocratic woman struggling with familial constraints. Cinematography was handled by Camilla Cattabriga, with editing by Marco Costa.
When questioned about Italian cinema’s historical significance, Guadagnino acknowledged the nation’s influential film tradition but expressed concern about its current state. He attributed the industry’s decline to the rise of private television and the broader cultural shift toward television production over theatrical cinema. According to Guadagnino, this transition resulted in genre work diminishing and authorship becoming narrowly defined, ultimately leaving Italian cinema “sterile and totally devoid of an idea of language and of an idea of life.”
Guadagnino stated that encountering filmmakers like Tortorici, whom he characterized as a rare talent in the Italian landscape, motivated his decision to produce the film. He emphasized the importance of providing such creators with resources to fully realize their vision. As an audience member, Guadagnino noted that Ketticè resonated universally with him.
Tortorici indicated that his film examines how institutions including schools, families, and state structures fail young people. He attributed such failures to adults operating within ultra-capitalist and media-driven contexts. Looking forward, Tortorici indicated plans to explore narratives further removed from his personal experience, drawing on encounters with people from challenging Palermo neighborhoods to continue examining youth struggles with authority figures and family structures.
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