Natalino film – full house in Barga

And the Natalino phenomenon just continues to grow with once again a full house in the Cinema Roma in Barga for the second showing of David Melani’s film Natalino. Last week it was shown for the first time in Fornaci.  The cinema there has seating for 250, all those seats were taken plus another 100 people standing cramming the aisles and hugging the walls and at least another 100 disappointed cinemagoers were turned away  as there was just physically not  enough space for everybody. This evening it was the turn of Cinema Roma, with 350 seats available but once again it was full house and many, many people turned away. DVD sales of the film were high as many people who could not get in to see the film bought a DVD so that they could at least watch it in the comfort of their own homes.

A spokesman for the Cinema Roma commented that the last time the cinema was packed like this was way back in 1984 when Rocky 4 was shown for the first time in Barga.

We first started reporting on the making of this film this back in February of last year. In that article we talked about a new name to add to the list of artists working in this area – the film maker, David Melani.

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He was making a strong reputation not just with his directing or his editing skills but also with his drive, purpose and all-round organisational abilities as he had gradually put together over the last couple of years a complete team dedicated to film making using local actors and technicians.

His feature length film lasting an hour and a half “Natalino” is based around a comic strip drawn by Nazareno Giusti involving the tragic story of a small boy injured during the war in 1944.

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A short trailer can be seen here

In March 2009 they were filming in Barga before moving on to film in Ghivizzano Alto, Borgo a Mozzano and Ghivizzano. This August that year, they were back once more filming in Barga using the church at Loppia as the backdrop to one of the final scenes in the film.

There is considerable interest in this area being generated around the making and  showing of the final finished film with a number of heavily populated facebook groups set up by fans eager to see Natalino on their screens.

Taking full advantage of the new social networking tools available via the internet – the director David Melani is one of just a handful of facebook users in this area who have a list of facebook friends hovering around than 5000 mark.

A short interview (in English) with David Melani recorded last week at the press conference for the launch of the film.

david melani

• Natalino films opens in Fornaci