Giacomo Abbruzzese – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

DISCO BOY – Review by Diane Carson

May 22, 2024May 26, 2024 Diane Carson Disco Boy, Giacomo Abbruzzese, Hélène Louvart, Niger Delta

In his feature debut, Disco Boy, Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese presents a complex story of political and personal struggle in two individuals from different countries. Escaping into France while on a visa for a football match in Poland, Aleksei, from Belarus, joins the French Foreign Legion. After five years’ service, he’ll receive a French passport. Meantime, in the Niger Delta, Jomo leads a paramilitary group protesting corporate exploitation of the country’s minerals. Aleksei and Jomo will face off against each other when Aleksei’s unit is charged with freeing French hostages. The title comes from Jomo’s comment that, had he been a rich white man, he would have been a “disco boy” dancer, and several scenes foreground a disco club.

Festivals Reviews

DISCO BOY (Melbourne IFF 2023) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

August 14, 2023August 14, 2023 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Disco Boy, Franz Rogowski, Giacomo Abbruzzese, Melbourne IFF 2023, Morr Ndiaye

Between Ira Sachs’s Passages and Giacomo Abbruzzese’s Disco Boy alone, 2023 is clearly a strong year for multi award-winning German actor Franz Rogowski. While Sachs’s films finds him working well in what is broadly an ensemble piece, Rogowski very much takes center stage in Disco Boy as Aleksei, a young Belarusian man who immigrates illegally to France and joins the Foreign Legion. Having learned the language through his love of French cinema, his military service will provide Aleks with a short cut to legal citizenship and a much-coveted French passport.