Monia Chokri's 'La natura dell'amore' Premieres in Italy on Valentine's Day

Monia Chokri's film 'Simple comme Sylvain' (Italian title 'La natura dell'amore') was presented at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section and arrives in Italian cinemas on February 14, 2024, distributed by Wanted in collaboration with Tinder. The film is a romantic comedy-drama that explores love's unpredictability through the story of Sophia, a philosophy professor in a stable ten-year relationship who falls for a carpenter renovating her countryside home. Chokri draws on philosophical texts from Plato to bell hooks, incorporating a voiceover from hooks' 'All About Love' (published in Italy as 'Tutto sull'amore' by Il Saggiatore). The director emphasizes how sociocultural backgrounds shape relationships, noting that friends, family, work, and neighborhood all weigh on a couple. Chokri describes the film as sweet, audacious, tender, fast, sharp, comic, and warm. She researched extensively, reading 'tons of books' on love in philosophy, and was surprised to find the topic often dismissed as frivolous. The film also references Hannah Arendt, though Chokri found her metaphysical approach cryptic. Chokri, known for her collaboration with Xavier Dolan, previously directed 'Brother and Sister' (2022), also about love. The film's release coincides with Valentine's Day, and the article was written by Margherita Bordino for Artribune.