Castello Cavalcanti
Directed by	Wes Anderson
Written by	Wes Anderson
Produced by	Roman Coppola Jeremy Dawson Julie Sawyer
Starring	Jason Schwartzman Giada Colagrande
Cinematography	Darius Khondji
Edited by	Stephen Perkins
Distributed by	Prada
Release date	November 13, 2013 (2013-11-13)
Running time	8 minutes
Countries	United States Italy
Languages	English Italian

Castello Cavalcanti is a 2013 short film written and directed by Wes Anderson, starring Jason Schwartzman as an unsuccessful race car driver who crashes his car in an Italian village. The 8-minute film was filmed at Cinecittà in Rome, Italy and financed by Prada. It debuted at the Rome Film Festival^[1] and was released online on November 13, 2013. It quickly became popular and received critical acclaim.^[2][3][4]

Plot

In a quiet Italian village in 1955, Italian-American Formula One driver Jed Cavalcanti (Jason Schwartzman), who is struggling in last place in a race through the countryside, crashes his car in the middle of the public square. Irritated with his situation, he abandons his car, blames the malfunctions on his brother-in-law (who is also his mechanic), and waits for the next bus out of town, which is set to arrive in 20 minutes. However, after sharing a drink with the villagers, he discovers that he is in his ancestral homeland, "Castello Cavalcanti", and that several members of his company are his "ancestors". After a friendly phone call with his brother-in-law, he soon decides to skip the next bus and spend more time in town.

Allusions to Italian cinema

Anderson alludes to some classic Italian films in the short, including several by Federico Fellini, such as La Dolce Vita (1960) and Amarcord (1973).^[5]