David is a young American actor riding high on the success of a TV series in which he plays a macho firefighter. Despite his growing popularity, he feels constrained by the small screen: he dreams of a role in cinema, like his friend and rival Steve, but he doesn’t seem to have the same determination. To be honest, David is very superficial and doesn’t put in enough effort, to the point that he often doesn’t even read the scripts, as his agent Mildred does it for him. So, when the opportunity arises, he finds himself unprepared.

Convinced that he is going to star in a biopic about Casanova, he arrives in Italy and finds himself in Recanati, on the set of Giacomo in Love, a very intimate arthouse film about the romantic and passionate life of Giacomo Leopardi. A poet whom he not only knows nothing about, but who is culturally, historically, and physically distant from him. To save the film (and the director’s heart, who had staked his entire career on the project), a local consultant is hired, Silvia, the young owner of a poetry club and a great historian and connoisseur of Leopardi’s life.

And there is nothing more distant and incompatible between the two; he is so American, materialistic, and superficial, while she is so passionate, cultured, and sensitive. But opposites, as we know, end up attracting each other… So Silvia introduces David to the world of Leopardi, bringing him closer to his pain and his view of the world, and David begins to understand, to empathize with the poet, to make the character his own. At the same time, David and Silvia, forced to spend time together, find in each other the answers that could fill the void hidden in each of their souls. They then discover that they are in love and are somehow forced to give it up, one out of pride, the other out of impossibility and distance. David and Silvia’s love story unfolds alongside the making of a film, which tackles poetic themes linked to the great Leopardi with the light tone of a romantic comedy and ends up binding the two protagonists to each other. But above all, it changes them. Leopardi & Co is a romantic comedy that, through the knowledge of a ‘star’ of world poetry, Giacomo Leopardi, tells a love story that brings together two sensibilities and two worlds to be explored, those of David and Silvia.

Fondazione Marche Cultura_Relazione descrittiva dell’operazione