Cesare and Vittorio are young and live for the now. They spend their time in bars and clubs and get their money from committing petty crimes. Time goes by, their paths separate and cross again with one of them trying to find release with more drugs and violence and the other one starting a family and getting a job.

Claudio Caligari died in 2015 right before the film was finished. It was only his third film in a career spanning more than 30 years on the margins of Italian cinema. Cesare shares his name with the heroin addicted protagonist in Caligari’s debut AMORE TOSSICO and Vittorio is also the name of the pimp in Pasolini’s film ACCATONE. These are only some of the connections that lead to the film universe of Roman outsiders. Cesare and Vittorio spend their days in the barren suburban landscapes of Rome and Ostia away from middle-class existence. The times – NON ESSARE CATTIVO is set in the 90s – have changed. The vitality with which Pasolini went about advocating for injustice has given way to the disillusioned looting of status symbols of an unattainable world.

The world’s relentlessness which Caligari portrays doesn’t affect his vision. He hesitantly asks what can remain between two people who were close their whole lives and who broke all their promises.

Sebastian Markt

Translation: Elinor Lewy