Starring Penelope Cruz and Emile Hirsch, the Italian-made picture "Twice Born" isn't on everyone's radar just yet, perhaps because it's an internationally produced picture. But that may be about to change, as the film is debuting at the Toronto Film Festival later this week.
Actor-director Sergio Castellitto ("Don't Move") directs Cruz and Hirsch in what TIFF describes as a "vivid, full-throttle melodrama about an ill-starred romance set against the backdrop of the siege of Sarajevo." Co-starring Jane Birkin and Luca De Filippo, and set against the Balkan Wars that tore apart the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, "Twice Born" centers on single mother Gemma (Cruz) who returns with her teen son to present-day Sarajevo where her son's father died during the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s.
Evidently Cruz's role is a two-parter as it takes place in the present as well as in a lot of flashbacks. Hirsch plays a young and exuberant American photographer in the time just before the Winter Olympics in 1984.
Castellitto's acting credits include Giuseppe Tornatore’s "The Star Maker," Jacques Rivette’s "Va savoir," and Marco Bellocchio’s "My Mother’s Smile" to name a few. Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think. "Twice Born" premieres at TIFF on Thursday, September 13. [Yahoo]