First obstacle overcome for Paolo Sorrentino and his “It was the hand of God”. The film in the running for the Oscars broke through the shortlist of the 15 best international films announced a few hours ago by the Academy.

Only on February 8 will it be known if the Neapolitan director will have won the nomination and on March 27 if he will bring home his second Oscar after “La Grande Bellezza” eight years ago.

This time he tries with an intense memoir (at the cinema and streaming on Netflix) that stages the drama he experienced when he was only a teenager and lost both parents, who died in the mountain house in Roccaraso due to a carbon monoxide escape. A tragedy that has the wonderful Naples of the 80s in the background with its crazy love for Diego Armando Maradona. It is for him that the young Sorrentino decided not to leave with his parents on that damned weekend, thus saving his life.

The film has already won the Grand Jury Prize in Venice 78 and the Mastroianni Prize to the talented protagonist Filippo Scotti, but on 11 December it missed the Efa's, the European “Oscars” and came out empty-handed. Meanwhile, it is among the most watched films in Italy on Netflix in these first days of streaming after also being released in theaters. Produced by Lorenzo Mieli and Paolo Sorrentino, a The Apartment (Fremantle group) production for Netflix, starring Toni Servillo, Teresa Saponangelo, Luisa Ranieri, Massimiliano Gallo, Enzo Decaro, Renato Carpentieri.