Sep 12, 2013

"The Art of Happiness" is an adult animation feature from Italy

L'arte della felicità (The Art of Happiness), an animated drama about a bitter, existential taxi driver with familial abandonment issues in urban Naples, debuted recently at the Venice Film Festival's International Film Critics Week section.

The film is a 2D/3D hybrid helmed by first-time feature director Alessandro Rak, a graduate of Rome's Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia Film School, and produced by Neapolitan studio Mad Entertainment, newly formed by producers Luciano Stella, Antonio Fresa and Luigi Scialdone. “Italy lags behind in the animation sector, especially in terms of being able to adapt to changing storytelling forms for new media,” Stella told Variety. “We are trying to change that.”

Reviews for the film have been reserved but hopeful, as typified by Deborah Young's comments in the Hollywood Reporter:

The most positive sentiments come from David Ollerton in the London Film Review, whose review also points out how different this is from conventional feature-animation fare:

In October, the film will open in Italy through the distributor Luce Cinecittà Institute. Paris-based sales and acquisitions company Elle driver has picked up all international rights so perhaps audiences worldwide will soon have an opportunity to judge for themselves.