The film by Antonio Valerio Spera presented at the Rome Film Fest 2022 arrives in cinemas on February 2. Here is the trailer for Life Is (Not) A Game.
Presented at Rome Film Fest last october, Life Is (Not) A Gamethe documentary that marks the directorial debut of Antonio Valerio Spera and which tells the story of the Roman street artist At a timewill debut in theaters on February 2nd.
Produced by Morel Film and Salon Indien Films (for an Italian-Spanish co-production) and distributed by Kimera Film and Morel Film, the film is not defined as “a conventional art documentary, nor a classic biopic, but the story of the last two years of our life observed from the point of view of the famous Roman artist, author, among others, of the very famous works: #Jenesuispasunvirus, dedicated to Sonia, a well-known Chinese restaurateur from the capital, who denounced the acts of racism against the Chinese community before the outbreak of the pandemic; and L’Abbraccio, the famous poster attached near the Egyptian Embassy in Rome in which Giulio Regeni embraces Zaki reassuring him that “this time everything will be fine”.
This is the official trailer of Life Is (Not) A Gameof which you can also read the review signed by Daniela Catelli.
The story begins in 2020: we go from discrimination against the Chinese community to Boris Johnson’s “herd immunity” objective, from the economic consequences of the pandemic to the war in Ukraine. Respecting the soul of the protagonist, the documentary presents itself with a “pop” imprint, made up of contaminations and homages, constantly poised between irony and depth of analysis. The camera follows Laika in the night raids, in confinement during the harsh months of the lockdown, to then accompany her to Bosnia at the beginning of 2021, when the artist decides to embark on the journey on the Balkan route to denounce the atrocious living conditions of the migrants; and finally in Poland, on the border with Ukraine, in April 2022. Life Is (Not) A Game, thus, starting from the news, tells this artistic journey made of fantasy, adrenaline, “game”, and the parallel crescendo of the civil conscience of Laika. A path that leads her to gradually put aside the playful soul of her work and pushes her beyond national borders to let only anger and denunciation explode. Shot between Rome, Bosnia, Frankfurt and Poland, Life Is (Not) A Game borrows its title from one of Laika’s works posted on her journey on the Balkan route, Life Is Not A Game. The poster is an explicit denunciation of the violence exerted by the police on migrants who experience the so-called “Game”, as the attempt to cross the border with Croatia is defined. The use of parentheses in the title is intended to evoke the double soul of the artist, between irony and social commitment.
