“The Last One for the Road”, interview with director Francesco Sossai

At the 16th Cinema Made in Italy festival at BFI Southbank, director Francesco Sossai spoke to Fred Film Radio about his gently melancholic road movie “The Last One for the Road”. The film follows two middle-aged misfits drifting across the Veneto countryside who unexpectedly pick up a shy architecture student, turning their wandering journey into a reflection on friendship, storytelling and contemporary Italy.

A Story Rooted in Real Life

Sossai explained that the emotional core of the film comes from his own experiences in northern Italy after the 2008 financial crisis, when many people in his region found themselves outside the traditional industrial workforce. He recalls spending time with men who drifted from town to town, drinking and talking late into the night, yet who carried a deep “inner map” of the Veneto landscape. While the events in the film are fictionalised, that feeling of wandering friendship and quiet displacement became the starting point for the film’s trio of lovable outsiders.

Film, Ritual and Tradition

The film’s warm, grainy texture comes from Sossai’s decision to shoot on film rather than digital. For him, this wasn’t simply about nostalgia but about the ritual of cinema. Working with celluloid creates a shared discipline between the director, cinematographer and crew and connects the film to a cinematic tradition while still engaging with the present.

Filippo Scotti and the Generational Dynamic

When Filippo Scotti joins the story as Giulio, an introverted architecture student drawn into the orbit of the two older drifters, the film opens up into an intergenerational encounter. Sossai says Scotti’s greatest strength as an actor is his ability to listen, something that helped create a natural chemistry with co-stars Sergio Romano and Pierpaolo Capovilla. Looking back, the director described the film as a kind of “Polaroid” of the time they spent together making it.

Ultimately, for Sossai, “The Last One for the Road” echoes the spirit of classic Italian comedy — speaking about serious themes in a light way. While Sossai admits he isn’t particularly optimistic about the world today, he believes cinema can still create moments of connection. The film invites audiences to stay present and listen to the stories unfolding around them — and bringing it to BFI Southbank, a place he describes as one of cinema’s “temples,” was a dream. As he joked, it probably also helps that the film tends to connect especially well with audiences who appreciate a drink.

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