The Filipino-Italian at the center of Vittorio Moroni’s new drama is a sensitive, intelligent 16-year-old who’s surrounded by small-minded people — until a mysterious mentor enters his life. “If I Close My Eyes I’m Not Here (Se chiudo gli occhi non sono piu qui)”, which competed in the International section of the Santa Barbara FIlm Festival, uses the remote atmospherics of its northeastern Italian setting to good effect, and its performances are strong. But the angsty story’s impact is muted by a surfeit of philosophical musings and distractingly precious poetic touches.
(Hollywood Reporter 18th February 2014)
Original title: Se chiudo gli occhi non sono più qui
Country: Italy
Year: 2013
Running time: 102 min
Format: 35mm
Directed by: Vittorio Moroni
Screenplay: Vittorio Moroni, Marco Piccarreda
Actors: Giorgio Colangeli, Beppe Fiorello, Mark Manaloto, Hazel Morillo, Elena Arvigo, Ignazio Oliva
Cinematography by: Massimo Schiavon
Editing by: Marco Piccarreda
Music: Mario Mariani (Ala Bianca Publishing)
Production: 50N, Rai Cinema
Synopsis: Kiko is 16 years old. His dead father was Italian and his mother Marilou is from the Philippines. They live with Ennio, his mother’s new partner, a foreman who exploits illegal migrant workers. Every day, after school, Kiko is forced to work in Ennio’s building yards. He feels he’s living in a wrong planet. There’s only one place where Kiko can dream: an old abandoned bus in a dump yard that he’s turned into his private refuge. One day an elderly friend of his father, Ettore, comes to change Kiko’s fate: he looks for him and offers to become a strange kind of tutor. But this man hides a secret…