Directed and starring Sergio Castellitto, the short film was made with Philip Morris Italia. «Because quitting», explains the president to Panorama.it and to Pasquale Frega, «is a gesture of responsibility towards others and oneself».
from Rome
In the «Museum of lost memories» there are things that will no longer be there: a crumpled cinema ticket, a beat-up bicycle, a computer too bulky to still work. Then, under another display case, a broken cigarettewith a decisive stroke of the pen, as if to underline the solemnity of a suffered act. All around, a story that it is not right to fully reveal, so as not to spoil the pleasure of watching Not todaya short film with the depth of a finished film, for the depth of the plot and the talent of the actors, starting from the protagonist-director, Sergio Castellitto.
The main hub is that of a future with an eye to the pastmarked by the not completely healed pain of a loss and that slight melancholy of memories which is both balm and regret. As implied, a prediction that coincides with a wish: one day traditional cigarettes could just be a memory. In fact, material from a bizarre museum with a high emotional level.
Presented this afternoon at the Rome Film Festival and produced by Dude, the short film was made in collaboration with Philip Morris Italia taking inspiration from the ongoing transformation in the tobacco sector and by the belief that the only way to fortify an innovation is through cultural change. And that the seventh art is an extraordinary vehicle to encourage and determine it. To push people, not only on the big screen, to put out, or rather to break, their last cigarette.
«If we want to keep the issue of health at the center», he reflects with Panorama.it Pasquale Fregapresident and CEO of Philip Morris Italia, «we must remember that health is a right, but also a duty. Especially if you think about the effects of smoking on the people around the smoker. Therefore, certain choices coincide with a gesture of responsibility towards others, as well as oneself.”
But why does a cigarette manufacturer become the spokesperson for these messages? Isn’t that a contradiction?
It’s the same question that Andrea Bocelli asked me when I told him about the «Believe. Further», which pursues the same objective, but with another universal language, that of music.
And what did you reply to Bocelli?
That if we as a company were to stop selling cigarettes immediately, we would be doing both the competition and organized crime a favor.
Instead?
Instead we believe in the gradualness of a process that is already proving to be inexorable. In Italy, in the last 8 years, more or less half of smokers have abandoned traditional cigarettes thanks to the opportunities now offered by science and technology. It is a transformation that we aim to further accelerate.
Let’s try the same experiment as the short film, let’s project ourselves forward, take a six-month horizon. How can the success of this initiative be measured?
First of all from the debate that it will have been able to create. And then from what we as Philip Morris Italia are doing. If we are committed to producing another initiative of the same caliber, then it will mean that it went really well.
Allow us a little spoiler for the audience: after the credits there is a surprise. An invitation, wrapped up in a slogan, to believe in it a little more. What is it referring to?
The need to go further in the fight against traditional cigarettes. Because it is an extremely complicated social phenomenon, fueled in part by confusion in the heads of decision makers. But it is also an invitation to stick your nose out, to look at virtuous examples, such as that of Sweden, where 95 percent of citizens have abandoned smoking, preferring alternative solutions to take nicotine. And it’s not fiction.
On the other hand, within the film you cannot see, not even in one frame, any of your new generation products. Why not bring them on stage in this vision of the future?
Because ours is not a commercial operation and it demonstrates the seriousness with which we are tackling the issue.
How important was Sergio Castellitto’s contribution in making it emerge clearly, without it appearing forced or too didactic?
From the first moment he believed in the goodness of the project and the message behind it. It helped us transform a beautiful idea into something intense, which touches the heart and brings tears to the eyes of the vast majority of spectators.
Including her?
Including me. It may be the personal involvement and the emotional investment, it may be because each of us has lost someone important in our lives and the plot inevitably pushes us to think back, but I have seen and re-watched the film many times and it has always moved me.
