On the occasion of the distribution in the hall, starting from 26 March, of the film Cattiva strada, feature debut of Davide Angiuli, the director met the press, accompanied by the two protagonists, Malich Cissè and Giulio Beranek. Set in Bari (where he is in competition at BIF&ST 2026), the work tells the story of Donato, who, after the meeting with August, embarks on a small career in the crime world, seen as the only chance to build for himself a different future than that apparently already marked.
Both Beranek and Cissè, and Angiuli, have a deep connection with the city told in the film, Bari. In particular it is there that the director was born and raised, therefore deciding to stage it with greater authenticity than usually happens. “I haven’t lived there for a long time, but I wanted to tell a city other than that of postcards or news services,” he said. “As all that is beautiful, it is a complex reality. To tell the nuances, even the darkest ones, for me it was quite natural: I lived those realities, those subcultures, even if not criminals. Crime is more of a kind, a means to tell a human history and the visceral link between Donato and August”.
This relationship with the city then finds a concreteization also in the choice of characterizing deeply with the dialect and the bare inflection the interpretations of the protagonists. Malich Cissè, who plays Donato, explains that, from Bari, he had no difficulty in this regard: “For me to act in Barese, in my language, it is as if I were acting in wolof, the language of Senegal (Cissè has Senegalese origins n.d.r.)”.
Davide Angiuli then called his film a coming of crime: “A version of the coming of age linked to crime and the darkest aspects of the contexts in which the characters live.” Precisely the crime aspect of Cactive Road hit the same actors as they just entered the project, as they called to confront characters apparently distant from them. “When I read the script, I saw people from my childhood. August is not necessarily a villain for me: he’s only a boy. The film basically tells two solitudes,” said Giulio Beranek. And similar is also the thought of the same Malich Cissè: “It was not very simple, because I come from a normal context, from a normal family. But, as I always say, I have known several Donates and several Augusts, and this has helped me so much.”.
Precisely the tuning between the two actors is one of the most effective elements of the feature film. When a question is asked about it, Beranek and Cissé believe that this kind of relationship was already inherent in the Angiuli script: “I think Donato sees a possibility in August: an opportunity to help his grandmother and to have a family. Donato does not want to remain alone and for this reason it binds to him who seems to give him such a perspective,” Cissé said.
Davide Angiuli then referred to the female characters of Bad Road: “They are fundamental. In particular, Irina, August’s sister, is the only one who really understands what is going on and what could lead the spiral in which the protagonists entered. It is perhaps the only one who could save himself, but Donato is too much taken from his loneliness to realize it.”.
Also, the work before the director, which confesses how in the past imagined his debut: “I was close to the realization of a different subject, but it did not go to good end. This film, on the other hand, has imposed itself, finding its space almost by itself. He met the right interest and at some point it became natural to think it as my debut. I come from Bari: telling it was the most honest thing I could do.” Giulio Beranek is the first to emphasize how this same honesty was perceptible during the processing of the film: “I never judge the characters: within them completely. I found them authentic. Then Bad Road is a relatively small project, we did not have the gigantic means of other productions. Yet sometimes this is an advantage. Working in a small film gives a great creative freedom: less means, but more truth”.
In closing you can only think of the final cup of the film, considered inevitable and necessary: “Maybe I could have imagined a different ending for August. But not for Donato; I always thought that his chance of salvation was just an illusion,” Beranek concluded.
L’articolo Bad road – Meeting with director Davide Angiuli and cast proviene da SentieriSelvaggi.
