Maeve Dermody will play Olivia, a free-spirited Aussie girl living in Italy, in romantic drama The Space Between.
The debut feature from writer-director Ruth Borgobello is in pre-production and the shoot will start in northern Italy on May 7
Flavio Parenti (To Rome with Love, I am Love ) is the lead, Marco, a 35-year-old who has a dispiriting job as a factory worker in Udine despite his skill as a chef amid the deepening economic crisis in Italy.
He passes his time in an empty relationship and after his best friend Claudio is killed in a car accident he tries to keep Claudio’s struggling bookshop business alive. Then he encounters Olivia, an aspiring furniture designer who is visiting Italy, the land of her father and grandparents.
Dermody recently finished shooting Paul Currie’s romantic thriller 2.22, playing the ex-girlfriend of an air traffic controller in New York (Game of Thrones’ Michiel Huisman) who nearly causes a fatal mid- air collision at the strike of 2:22, then discovers the same patterns in his life are happening at the same time each day.
In Chris Fitchett’s supernatural thriller The Fear of Darkness, which has its world premiere on April 11 at the Gold Coast Film Festival, she plays a psychiatrist who investigates the disappearance of a university student.
The Space Between is the first official co-production between Italy and Australia since the two countries signed a treaty in 1996.
Co-producing with Borgobello’s Mondo Studio Films is Idea Cinema’s Claudio Saraceni, who has produced more than 60 Italian films including Fellini's last film La Voce della Luna, which starred Roberto Benigni, Darker Than Midnight, As You Want Me and Iago.
The DoP is Katie Milwright, whose credits include Amanda Jane’s The Wedding Party, Please Like Me and Laid.
The financiers are the Italian Ministry for Arts and Culture (MiBACT), the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission and private investors in Australia. Distribution deals have been struck with Palace Films and Italy’s Cinecitta Luce.
“The film is primarily targeted at a generation X and Y audience and will also appeal to a 45-plus audience who may have faced a similar crisis in their lives,” Ruth said.