Massimo Troisi Trailer: Paolo Sorrentino & Michael Radford Recall ‘Il Postino’ Star In Berlinale Doc ‘Somebody Down There Likes Me’

EXCLUSIVE: Italian director Mario Martone, who has been on the festival and awards circuit over the past year with Oscar submission and Cannes title Nostalgia, is at the Berlinale with his passion project Somebody Down There Likes Me.

The documentary pays tribute to late Italian actor and fellow Neapolitan Massimo Troisi who died tragically young at the age of 41 in 1994, just hours after filming wrapped on Michael Radford’s Il Postino (The Postman).

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Selected for the Berlinale Specials sidebar, the documentary plays at a sold-out screening on Saturday, on the eve of what would have been the actor’s 70th birthday on February 19.  Deadline can reveal a trailer.

Martone says he wants to shed light on the popular actor who he believes has never been properly celebrated.

“Massimo has always remained alive in the collective consciousness because he was a great actor and a great artist,” says the director.

Il Postino, in which Troisi plays a postman who connects with exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda on a small island off Naples, would posthumously propel the actor to international fame and garner him two Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Screenplay.

Troisi and Radford co-wrote the screenplay – adapted from the Chilean novel A Burning Patience – during a three-week stay at Santa Monica’s Shutters Hotel.

Back home, Troisi was already a household name and star thanks to comedy classics such as I Am Starting From Three; collaborations with Roberto Benigni such as Nothing Left To Do But Cry; and Ettore Scola’s dramas such as Splendor, also starring Marcello Mastroianni.

The director explores Troisi’s legacy through archive material and interviews with a raft of cinema professionals who either worked with or were inspired by the actor. Interviewees include Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino, Radford, screenwriter Anna Pavignano, who was also the actor’s partner for a decade, long-time actor collaborator Francesco Piccolo and critic Goffredo Fofi.

The documentary was produced by Indiana Production, Medusa Film and Vision Distribution, which also handles international sales.

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