Mister Universo, Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel, Austria, Italy, 2016, 90’, OV with Spanish subtitles, DCP.
Tairo was Patty and Walter’s teenage son in the movie La Pivellina. Seven years later, Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel recover their character and make him the co-protagonist of their new story. Now Tairo is a lion tamer, going through a rough patch. To put an end to his bad streak, he goes in search of a mythical character, who can supposedly bend iron plates with his muscles, Arthur Robin, former Mr. Universe, who has been in retirement for some time.
The film uses the same scenarios: trailers, fairs, secondary roads and the outskirts of many Italian cities of today. It also insists on working with non-professional and on that particular hybrid between documentary and fiction films. The result is, once again, a film that comes straight at you, overflowing with humanism that conceals one of those mythical characters worthy of any brought to us by Fellini or Pasolini: old Arthur Robin, one of those "miracles" only very occasionally seen on a film screen, who we’ll never forget.
Special mention by the jury at the Locarno Film Festival 2016.
Screening of the film 'Mister Universo' by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, in the framework of the carte blanche to Locarno Film Festival.