‘Marcello Mio’ Receives Eight-Minute+ Bravos At World Premiere – Cannes Film Festival

Now a Cannes veteran, French filmmaker Christophe Honoré has returned to the Competition with the world premiere of Marcello Mio, his French-Italian comedy that stars longtime collaborator Chiara Mastroianni — who, in the film, adopts the persona and appearance of her late father, Marcello Mastroianni. The movie received applause that lasted a touch over eight minutes during its unveiling this evening.

Marcello Mio taps into the younger Mastroianni’s complex reality of being the daughter of cinema icons Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve.

In a fantasy scenario, Chiara hits a crisis point and begins to dress, speak and breathe like her late father, the legendary star of such films as La Dolce Vita, 81/2 and Marriage Italian Style. Those around her, including Deneuve, Fabrice Luchini, Melvil Poupaud, Benjamin Biolay, Nicole Garica and Hugh Skinner, who also play part-real, part-fictionalized versions of themselves in Marcello Mio, begin to believe it and start to call her “Marcello.”

The journey takes Chiara to her father’s home city of Rome, where she revisits old haunts and key backdrops of his filmography even jumping in the Trevi Fountain for her own La Dolce Vita moment.

Honoré and Mastroianni previously collaborated On A Magical Night (Chambre 212) which premiered in Un Certain Regard and won Mastroianni a Best Actress prize.

This is Honoré’s fifth time in Cannes and third in Competition, after Love Songs in 2007 and Sorry Angel in 2018.

Marcello Mio is lead produced by Paris-based Les Films Pelléas, which produced Anatomy of a Fall with Les Films de Pierre, in co-production with Bibi Films and Lucky Red. Ad Vitam has French rights and mk2 films is handling international sales.