One To Watch For From Italy? Piano 17 Teaser Online.

I just got a note from occassional contributor Paolo Gilli steering me to what may be a film to keep an eye on from Italy, crime thriller Piano 17 from the Manetti Brothers. Best known as music video directors whose previous two features got mixed responses the brothers are also apprently huge fans of Italian crime film from the seventies, enough so that they've just completed a crime miniseries based on the novels of Carlo Lucarelli and have been tapped to produce extra features for stellar boutique DVD label NoShame. Their latest screened recently at the Noir In Festival at Courmayeur and won the audience award, taking a staggering 95% of the vote. So either the lineup was really bad or this film is really good.

Paolo was good enough to translate the synopsis:

"Mancini (Giampaolo Morelli), in order to destroy some important documents, has to place a bomb in a Bank where the papers are deposited. He goes there dressed as floorcleaner but gets stucked in the elavator with two employees of the Bank (Elisabetta Rocchetti e Giuseppe Soleri), who were just going home. Outside the building two of Mancini's buddys, Pittana and Borgia (Enrico Silvestrin e Antonino Iuorio) are apparently waiting for his "mission" to be finished. But with the passing of the minutes Mancini realizes that maybe the two are not really helping him like they should .. and a run against the time begins.

The cast includes Giampaolo Morelli, Elisabetta Rocchetti, Enrico Silvestrin, Antonio Iuorio, Massimo Ghini, Giuseppe Soleri, Valerio Mastandrea. The movie is extremly lowbudget with 65.000 Euro and all the cast worked for free. It was shot in Mini dv and Hdv over a five week period."

The teaser trailer now online gives away nothing of the plot but they certainly shoot some decent film.

Piano 17 Website
Piano 17 Teaser (downloadable Quicktime)