''The Art of Happiness'' ( it, L'arte della felicità) is a 2013 Italian

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

written and directed by Alessandro Rak, at his directorial debut. It opened the

International Critics' Week The International Critics' Week (french: Semaine de la Critique) was founded in 1962 and is organized by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics. It was created following the showing of '' The Connection'' directed by Shirley Clarke which had been ...

at the

70th Venice International Film Festival The 70th annual Venice International Film Festival took place in Venice, Italy from 28 August to 7 September 2013. American film director William Friedkin was presented with a lifetime achievement award. Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucc ...

Plot

Sergio works as a taxi driver in Naples; under a heavy rain, he brings his customers through the increasingly degraded city. At the same time he tries to cope with the death of his brother, who departed for Tibet ten years before and never returned. On the seats of his taxi a singer, a radio speaker, an old uncle and other characters alternate, and each of them brings a trace of his missing brother.

Cast

* Leandro Amato as ''Sergio Cometa'' ** Luigi Meola as ''Young Sergio'' *

Nando Paone Nando Paone (born 27 November 1956) is an Italian actor. He appeared in more than thirty films since 1977. Selected filmography References External links * 1956 births Living people Italian male film actors {{Italy-film-actor ...

as ''Alfredo Cometa'' ** Matteo Russo as Young Alfredo *

Renato Carpentieri Renato Carpentieri (born 2 April 1943) is an Italian actor, stage director and playwright. Life and career Born in Savignano Irpino, Avellino, Carpentieri studied architecture in Naples, where from 1965 to 1974 he was engaged in the organizatio ...

as ''Luciano Cometa'' * Jun Ichikawa as ''Antonia'' *

Lucio Allocca Lucio Allocca (born 5 July 1943) is an Italian actor, theatre director and playwright. Life and career Born in Naples, in 1966 Allocca graduated from the School of Dramatic Art of the Politecnico di Napoli, and was mainly active on theatre, in ...

as ''Sergio'' and Alfredo's Father * Iolanda Semez as ''Mrs. Pinotta'', Sergio and Alfredo's mother. * Patrizia Di Martino as ''Erika'' * Antonio Brachi as ''Maurizio Brachetti'' * Ciro Cesarano as ''Nando'' * Silvia Baritska as ''Lariza'' * Riccardo Polizzy Carbonelli as Speaker * Gennaro Matino as himself, the priest in Alfredo's funeral. * Paola Tortora as Woman in Bass * Dario Sansone as Man in Bass * Antonio Funaro as the voice of the taxi's radio. * Francesca Romana Bergamo as the voice of the radio news *

Robert Thurman Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman (born August 3, 1941) is an American Buddhist author and academic who has written, edited, and translated several books on Tibetan Buddhism. He was the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at ...

as himself

Accolades

''The Art of Happiness'' won the award for best animated film at the

27th European Film Awards The 27th European Film Awards were presented on 13 December 2014 in Riga, Latvia. The winners were selected by more than 2,500 members of the European Film Academy. Nominations for the People's Choice Award category were announced on 1 Septembe ...

. It also won the audience's award for Best Feature Film at the 2014

Raindance Film Festival Raindance is an independent film festival and film school that operates in major cities including London, Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Budapest, Berlin, and Brussels. The festival was established in 1992 by Elliot Grove to ...

References

External links

* 2013 films European Film Awards winners (films) Italian animated films 2013 animated films Italian drama films Animated drama films Films set in Naples 2013 directorial debut films 2010s Italian films {{animation-film-stub