On the occasion of the Umbria Cinema Festival, the brainchild of Paolo Genovese, president of the Umbria Film Commission, we reveal how Todi was the inspiration for his most famous films.

Genovese's connection with our land was born from the love handed down by his family for Umbria: his passion for the region was born many years ago in a very specific place, Todi. Here he bought an old farmhouse in San Damiano, about 7 km away from the village's green heart. After renovating it, it became his refuge to escape from the frenetic life of the city. The tranquillity that it conveyed inspired him to such an extent that his best-known films were born there: "The Place", "Perfect Strangers" and "A Perfect Family". He has a special connection with the town: some of the scenes were filmed in Todi, which allowed the director to get to know it even better and fall in love with its views, streets and buildings.

The cinematic eye is capable of capturing the most hidden beauties, involving all the town's citizens as if they were an integral part of the story, an indissoluble cord that can hardly be broken. Paolo Genovese has shot several films around the world, but the sensations that Todi gives him every time he returns are much more powerful: passion, work and childhood, a perfect mix that makes it his favourite city in the world.

When he is in Todi, the first thing Paolo Genovese does is to go to Piazza del Popolo, sit at the bar and chat with friends and shopkeepers, whom he knows one by one, enjoy a good coffee and read the newspaper immersed in the medieval atmosphere, an opposite dimension that of the metropolis. 

For him, in Todi you can find all the aspects that characterise the beauty of Italy: good food, passion for culture, tradition, craftsmanship, tourist vocation and hospitality. What has always struck him about its inhabitants is their marked friendliness and welcome: from the very beginning you feel part of the community, when you go to Todi you feel "tuderte".