Tommaso

Although the surface seems to be calm and peaceful, there is always an underlying feeling of turmoil in Abel Ferrara's films. Former filmmaker Tommaso (Dafoe) lives with his much younger Italian wife and their three-year-old daughter in an apartment in Rome. After years of partying, sex and drugs, he seems to have settled down with a quiet family life, and he goes to regular meetings at the local AA association. But all of a sudden, the demons of the past come to the surface through in dream sequences with significant nods to Ferrara's perhaps best film, Bad Lieutenant. This is undoubtedly an impressive achievement from Willem Dafoe, and few could have expressed Tommaso's ambiguity more intensively than him.

Abel Ferrara (b. 1951) became a name within the New York film scene in the 1980’s. He’s biggest successes came in the early 90’s with the ultra-violent King of New York and Bad Lieutenant starring Christopher Walken and Harvey Keitel. In recent years, he has mainly made films in Italy.