Elvjs & Merilijn (1998)
Directed by Armando Manni
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Synopsis by Bhob Stewart
Armando Manni made his directorial debut with this Italian drama featuring celebrity look-alikes. Bulgarian Nicolaj (Goran Navojec) is an Elvis impersonator and Romanian Ileana (Edyta Olszowka) does Marilyn Monroe. When the two strangers enter a 1995 Bucharest look-alike competition, they both win an engagement for the summer at an Adriatic coast nightclub, getting to know each other by speaking in halting Italian phrases learned from watching television. A passport problem at the airport prompts them to make an illegal border entry by car, traveling through war-torn Yugoslavia and staying at a military outpost where they come under suspicion after the suicide of a colonel (Toni Bertorelli). The dark landscape of Central Europe gives way to the glitter of Riccone, but unfortunately their act fails, forcing them to find humiliating work with a porn show. Shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.