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Italian film triggers unintended laughter at Venice Film Festival

Sep 7, 2011, 12:30 GMT

Venice, Italy - The screening Wednesday of Italian director Cristina Comencini's Quando la notte (When the night) at the Venice Film Festival drew giggles and even open laughter - but at moments in the dramatic storyline which apparently were not meant to be funny.

The film tells the story of Marina a young mother who on holiday in an Alpine villa struggles to deal with her restless two-year-old boy.

Events take a twist when her landlord one night intervenes after the boy is injured in an apparent fall.

Some of the verbal exchanges between Claudia Pandolfi who plays Marina and her often monosyllabic landlord, Manfred, played by Filippo Timmi, appeared to miss the mark intended by Comencini.

Several boos and whistles, but also some applause went up at the end of the film's press screening.

But Comencini defended the film and its screenplay which is based on her novel of the same name.

'Emotions are not always accepted at festivals,' Comencini said speaking after Quando la notte's screening.

'In this film there are two or three very emotional moments and courage is needed to feel emotions, she added.

Also making its debut later in the festival's in-competition section was Israeli director Eran Kolirin's Hahithalfut.

According to a statement by its director the film 'is not a movie about many things, but rather about the things themselves. Tables, doors, rooms, chairs: all these strange things that constitute our lives.'

Also screening in-competition Wednesday, was Russian director Alexander Sokurov's Faust, a 'in between' the lines reading of Goethe's famous tragedy of the same name in which a man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for worldy knowledge and pleasures.

The Venice Film Festival runs until September 10.

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