A projectionist who steals wallets while stealing your attention—meta as hell.
Next Week in Bologna is a tongue-in-cheek nod to Italian Neo-Realism, shot in Rob Nilsson's Direct Action style. A pickpocket cinema projectionist in Bologna, Italy, narrates three intertwining stories of tourists who visit his city one summer. A timid adjunct professor from Australia receives word from a mysterious stranger about his imminent death while nervously preparing to present his paper on the classic film Last Year at Marienbad. An apostate ex-priest gifts a naive and destitute young couple with a camcorder...for possibly lecherous purposes. And, lastly, the pickpocket projectionist narrator pursues his own adventure with a lovely but understandably cautious Icelandic girl.
Direction
Nilsson's Direct Action method keeps everything dangerously spontaneous.
Writing
Narrator's smug commentary on his own scams is delicious.
Director
Rob Nilsson
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The title winks at Italian Neo-Realism's obsession with post-war poverty, here swapped for post-grad pretension and tourist economies.
Rob Nilsson developed Direct Action cinema in 1980s San Francisco, requiring actors to improvise without scripts—explaining why everyone's slightly uncomfortable in the best way.
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