The Django Sky TV series when it was released and its plot

The programming of the 17th edition of the Rome Film Fest saw today, Sunday October 16, the world premiere of the new television series from Sky Original and CANAL +: Django. The series, inspired by the 1966 cult western film of the same name directed by Sergio Corbucci, will be released in 2023 exclusively on Sky and streaming only on NOW.

Born from an idea by Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli, the television series will consist of 10 episodes entirely shot in Romania, the first four of which will be directed by Francesca Comencini (Gomorrah – The series) who also plays the role of artistic director of the project. In addition, to complete the production team, we also find David Evans (Downton Abbey) and Enrico Maria Artale (Romulus) who are directing the following episodes. Django is a Sky and Cattleya production with Atlantique Production and Canal+ and features an exceptional international cast. These are names that already stand out considerably in the world of cinema, such as that of Matthias Schoenaerts, Nicholas Pinnock, Lisa Vicari and Noomi Rapace who, today, on the occasion of the preview screening of the television series , receives the Progressive Lifetime Achievement Award.

Django TV Series Synopsis

The remake – with clear and contemporary ideas – of a classic of the western genre by Sergio Corbucci tells the story of an armed bandit named Django (Matthias Schoenaerts) who wants to discover the truth about the tragic massacre of his family. During this mission, however, the protagonist will find himself fighting for an even greater ideal. It’s Texas in the late 1800s and the cowboy thinks he’s lost his daughter Sarah discovers she’s actually alive. The clues indeed lead him to a city built at the bottom of a crater, Babylon, where all the marginalized of society can find refuge as it is supported by a principle of freedom and equality. The young girl, now aged twenty, lives there with her companion John Ellis, founder of the city, and is about to get married.

Sarah, however, holding her father responsible for the massacre of their family killed many years ago while at war, resents his presence there and wants him gone. But Django, determined to reconnect with his daughter, does everything possible to stay with her. Indeed, he quickly manages to become an important ally of Ellis who is grateful to him for having defended Babylon from the attack of the powerful Elmdale Lady Elizabeth Thurman. The woman, feared enemy of the city of Ellis and Sarah, aims to eliminate it because it is inhabited by thieves and sinners.

The western genre for director Francesca Comencini: “I, a rebellious girl”

Also today, following the viewing of the first two episodes of Django, there was a meeting with the director of the television series. And it is precisely on this occasion that Francesca Comencini reveals the place of the western genre in her life and her professional training: “as a child, I loved the westerns of the 70s because they were films of revolt, of rebellion . The protagonists have always been anti-heroes opposed to forms of power: refractory, anarchists. The Italian and American westerns of this era built a great tale, a dark adult tale in which the directors were able to talk about this era. Conflicts of this time and this spirit of revolt. She played an important role in my personal formation, as a rebellious girl”.

The work of adaptation between tradition and contemporaneity

Secondly, the director also explains how she succeeded in reconciling the tradition of Sergio Corbucci’s film with the contemporary nature of the soap opera. And on this subject he declares: “we knew that we had a legendary tradition and we respected and honored it. At the same time, we tried, first of all the writers Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli, to do like them. That is to say, to speak of our time. And we did that by giving a big role to female characters in telling a new kind of anti-hero. Even our Django has an anti-hero, like its predecessors, with perhaps the most intimate crises, related to the emotional sphere. Which seemed to us to be linked to the codes of virility today. And we also talked about a world without borders, full of differences. Where everyone is different from everyone else and where there is the utopia that everyone is welcome. But there are those who are afraid of these differences. A fear that leads to getting closer to an antagonist beautifully embodied by Noomi Rapace, a female character. A woman who becomes the fiercest guardian of a patriarchal order and we tried to understand what was behind this extremism in her”.