All Is Fake (2002)

Former artistic director of the Teatro San Carlo, former director of the Conservatoire San Pietro a Majella, ethnomusicologist, mythologist, playwright, composer, director and reinventor of music theatre... Roberto De Simone, born in Naples in 1933, is an encyclopaedic personality, a phenomenon, of which the public is often aware of only a partial aspect. Roberto De Simone refers as much to the classical and folk culture of Naples and Campania as to his eclecticism as a contemporary artist. 1976, in the wake of his world-famous group 'Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare', "La gatta Cenerentola" is his first great stage work. It achieved immense success, and shortly thereafter gained a legendary reputation. Since then Roberto De Simone has pursued his creative career through the genres. This film is a ritual journey into the spiritual topography of Roberto De Simone, featuring the theatre and music ensemble Media Aetas. Various layers are intertwined, ranging from the music theatre to the fantastic, magical and religious tangle of a traditional world, which is dying out, and from the unsettling setting of an ex-psychiatric clinic to some barely known facets of Neapolitan history.