My brilliant friend – The story of a new name

TV Series
Directed by Director's notes
  • SAVERIO COSTANZO
  • ALICE ROHRWACHER
Year
  • 2019
Length
  • 8x50’
View Trailer
Directed by
  • SAVERIO COSTANZO
  • ALICE ROHRWACHER
Year
  • 2019
Length
  • 8x50’
View Trailer

Cast
  • Margherita Mazzucco
  • Gaia Girace
  • Anna Rita Vitolo
  • Luca Gallone
  • Antonio Buonanno
  • Valentina Acca
  • Gennaro De Stefano
  • Giovanni Amura
  • Federica Sollazzo
  • Fabrizio Cottone
  • Eduardo Scarpetta
  • Francesca Pezzella
  • Ulrike Migliaresi
  • Christian Giroso
  • Francesco Serpico
  • Miriam D’Angelo
 
  • Giovanni Buselli
  • Elvis Esposito
  • Alessio Gallo
  • Rosaria Langellotto
  • Dora Romano
  • Pina Di Gennaro
  • Emanuele Valenti
  • Fabrizia Sacchi
  • Sarah Falanga
  • Imma Villa
  • Antonio Milo
  • Lia Zinno
  • Clotilde Sabatino
  • Matteo Cecchi
  • Giulia Mazzarino
  • Gabriele Vacis
  • Bruno Orlando
Synopsis

The events of the second chapter of My Brilliant Friend pick up exactly where the first season left off. Lila and Elena are sixteen, and both feel they are stuck in a rut. Lila has just got married, but in taking her husband’s surname, it is as if she has lost herself. Elena is a model student but during her friend’s wedding reception, she realises she is happy neither inside the neighbourhood nor outside it. During a holiday on Ischia, the two friends meet up with old childhood friend Nino Sarratore once again, who has since become a promising university student. The seemingly casual encounter changes the nature of their bond forever, sending them off into two completely different worlds. Lila becomes a skilled saleswoman in the elegant shoe shop of the powerful Solara family, in the centre of Naples; Elena, on the other hand, doggedly pursues her studies, even willing to move away to do university in Pisa. The events of My Brilliant Friend spirit us along with the two girls through the heady years of their youth as they follow one another, losing sight of each other before finding one another once again.

Director's notes
  • I have tried to tell the story that follows the turns and movements of the characters. An adaptation that aims to present the viewers with the great scenes of Elena Ferrante’s novel on which the series is based. The acting, always poised, looks for a density and a fullness animated by the contradictory streams of the characters. The voice that tells the story as it would be the drafting of a book, a first person that follows the viewer inside the most unspeakable thoughts of the protagonists. A voice that links together the time of the story with the anarchic and sentimental freedom of the pages of a diary. My aim is that the eight episodes form a single story whilst the themes differentiate them from each other both in terms of filmic form and narrative structure, each time inspired by the changes in the bodies and the moods of the protagonists. The image, the staging and the colors of the series evolve and change as the story proceeds.
A Series by
  • SAVERIO COSTANZO
Screenplay
  • ELENA FERRANTE
  • FRANCESCO PICCOLO
  • LAURA PAOLUCCI
  • SAVERIO COSTANZO
Produced by
  • FANDANGO
  • THE APARTMENT
  • WILDSIDE
  • RAI FICTION
  • HBO ENTERTAINMENT
  • MOWE
  • UMEDIA
In collaboration with
  • RAI COM
International Distribution
  • FREMANTLE
Broadcaster
  • HBO
  • RAI FICTION
Director's notes
X

I have tried to tell the story that follows the turns and movements of the characters. An adaptation that aims to present the viewers with the great scenes of Elena Ferrante’s novel on which the series is based. The acting, always poised, looks for a density and a fullness animated by the contradictory streams of the characters. The voice that tells the story as it would be the drafting of a book, a first person that follows the viewer inside the most unspeakable thoughts of the protagonists. A voice that links together the time of the story with the anarchic and sentimental freedom of the pages of a diary. My aim is that the eight episodes form a single story whilst the themes differentiate them from each other both in terms of filmic form and narrative structure, each time inspired by the changes in the bodies and the moods of the protagonists. The image, the staging and the colors of the series evolve and change as the story proceeds.