IL TOCCO DI PIERO

Piero Umiliani was one of Italy's top soundtrack composers of the 20th century. The movie recounts his creative parabola, from his start during the postwar period playing in small Allied jazz orchestras to the first Italian jazz soundtrack for Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street, to one of the most famous earworms in the world (the one that goes “Man’ha Man’ha…”), to the soundtracks of genre films from the 1960s and '70s. Umiliani was one of the first to experiment with electronic music in Italy but a brain hemorrhage abruptly interrupted his activity in the mid-1980s. All the great  Italian jazz musicians have played for him, as have Chet Baker, Helen Merrill, and Gato Barbieri. In the 1990s, after a difficult recovery from his illness, his music was rediscovered in discos by young audiences and the music he created began to be sacked and sampled by English-speaking rappers.

“'Jazz is rhythm because it comes from Africa. It's part of our lives.' This is how Piero Umiliani, who never liked classifications, tried to define the music that so deeply inspired his life and remained central to his inspiration, despite the thousands of styles he used when composing soundtracks, libraries, and more. These words were my starting point for constructing a movie with a 'syncopated' rhythm that was more than just a simple biography. More than a movie about Umiliani, Il tocco di Piero is a movie about his music. This is why I wanted his sound to play again, strictly live, with unusual arrangements prepared by Italian musicians who are perhaps most closely tied to him.”

DIRECTOR, SCREENPLAY: Massimo Martella. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Paolo Ferrari. FILM EDITING: Angelo Musciagna. MUSIC: Piero Umiliani. CAST: Enrico Pieranunzi Quintet, Calibro 35, Carlotta Proietti, Simona Severini, Serena Altavilla, Elisabetta Umiliani, Alessandra Umiliani, Stefania Boffa, Dario Salvatori, Vincenzo Mollica. PRODUCTION: Luce Cinecittà.