Long Live Freedom 2013

In this chilling story about world politics, Enrico Oliveri, Toni Servillo defies expectations by embodying two intertwined figures: the disgraced ideologue and party leader, and his shrewd, unhinged twin who seizes control in the wake of Enrico’s disappearance, Giovanni Ernani, Toni Servillo. As the national election approaches, Enrico Oliveri has plummeted in the polls, and his supporters and adversaries alike begin to acknowledge his impending downfall. Unwilling to face the failure of his party and his nation, Enrico vanishes into the night. The party leadership tries to hedge for time by concealing Enrico’s disappearance with a series of acrobatic sidesteps. In a desperate move, right-hand man Andrea Bottini, Valerio Mastandrea, seeks out Enrico’s look-alike twin, Giovanni Ernani, a prolific author and philosopher freshly released from an insane asylum. Ernani takes the public stage, delivering interviews, giving speeches, and presiding over conferences with a fearless, almost prophetic verve, injecting a revolutionary wind into politics—creativity at the helm, poetry that leaves opponents and voters alike astonished.

The film then threads a tense, two-handed dance between the two faces of power: the earnest intellectual and the audacious, calculating madman. It probes the driving forces behind our contemporary global political reality, leaving a rich web of questions about truth, illusion, and the true cost of political power. Danielle, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, a Paris-based secretary and Enrico’s former lover, is drawn back into the orbit of power as she navigates a life married to the celebrated Chinese director Mung, Eric Nguyen, with their daughter Hélène, Stella Kent. Back in Italy, Anna, Anna, Michela Cescon, Enrico’s wife, and Bottini maneuver to steer the crisis, while the pair’s entanglement with Danielle—who remains at the center of both personal and political storms—adds a dangerous layer to the saga. The narrative foregrounds a striking dynamic: two brothers, united in desire for the same woman, collide with a nation’s fate, and the line between genuine truth and manufactured power becomes increasingly blurred. In this provocative thriller, the truth about power unfolds as a volatile, strategic game where private loyalties collide with public spectacle, and the stakes could redefine what a nation believes to be true.