(iniziativa)* - From the snowy Canada of Ontario more unknown films come to Roman festival- the delicate Only

The work examines and gives us the background of a wild and wonderful place as the snowy Ontario, in northern Canada, where the solitude of the places determines the flow of the boys inner consciousness. Canada becomes, therefore, an infinite space, not dissimilar from the emotions that Daniel and Vera have yet to discover and experience. Snow, the color white, is equal to their innocence, lost because the first awareness of human dramas is indeed present in their lives: Daniel’s mother's cancer, the married unhappiness of Vera’s parents. Veninger and Reynolds offer us a portrait of a youth different from the usual, proposed in movies of recent times. To be portraits are not unhappy and spoiled children, a symbol of the post-economic society, but two human being trying to intimately understand those brief moments in which people "touch” each other’s soul to, then, not meet anymore. After all, (this movie) is a very innocent, poetic and powerful love story about friendship, often exploited by the big screen, but never in such a shining example, which in certain moments touches peaks of high lyricism. Moments ever explored in such a delicate way from the cinema of recent years. Vera and Daniel skimmed them in the turbines of their own lives, in a moment that being children is tightening, but being adults is still something abstract.

The film is strongly dominated by silences narrative, while the dialogues are concise, meaningful and all played in the sphere of confrontation and mutual discovery. A point of encounter and mutual understanding is denied by the grown up world, too busy in their own problems to realize to have created some even for their children. The touch of grace is achieved through the authentic cinematography by Ian Anderson, developed on the incredible contrasts of light and shadows on the basis of minimal color. There are no words to describe the naturalness with which the two actors interact, one under the other, incredible discoveries of great professionalism, but far from those "monstrous" aspects of Hollywood adolescents, who retain all their appearance except the natural innocence of their age. Jacob Switzer is a slouching and sensitive Daniel, scrutinizing with the eye of an experience elder, while newcomer Elena Hudgins Lyle develops a character with great introspective courage. The young male protagonist, Veninger's son, is attending the same class of Elena, as the engaging director explained to us, during an informal presentation to the Metropolitan Cinema in Via del Corso. Very excited for the European movie premiere and for her son’s first kiss, given to Elena on screen in one of the final scenes. Their contact appears as a purely symbolic action, which provides most of their innocence, in the context of a lonely world, such as the one described by its authors.

Produced by pUKNK FILMS, “Only” has many autobiographical nuances, in fact Veninger moved during the early seventies from Bratislava to Ontario, where her parents were managing the small motel, actually used in the movie- made with a very low budget (it’s costed just 20,000 dollars, including costs of post-production). Moreover, the young Ingrid Veninger deals again, in some way, through her son, as his parental figure, that adolescent stage lived and used from her own life as inspiration for his work. For this reason, the work acquires a metaphorical significance even more valuable, because it is almost a bridge between generations, at that moment we all go through. Alas, most probably Only will not have a distribution in theater*, but only through the Internet and DVD format, let’s hope that its natural festivity course can serve something. In reality, it would be one of those works that, if well run, could get a lot of consideration, not only by critics (as has already happened in previous festivals in Toronto, Vancouver and Sudbury that participated in homeland), but also from the public.

Director: Ingrid Veninger, Simon Reynolds; Cast: Jacob Switzer, Elena Hudgins Lyle, Ingrid Veninger, Christopher Sutherland; Production: Canada, 2008; Duration: 74 '

Original Italian version by Erminio Fischetti (“Iniziativa”, November-1th-2008)
English translation by Erminio Fischetti
Translation supervised by Orietta Gianjorio and Ingrid Veninger

* this information is valid for original italian version (November 1th 2008). At this date, November 27th 2008, the producers are negotiating a distributions in theatres.

Italian version:

http://www.iniziativa.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4401&Itemid=6