'Heads or Tails?' reflects on the evocative power of the word to tell the desire for freedom of the human being.
Taxi Drivers
By Carlo Cerofolini
October 12, 2025
Presented in the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section and in Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival, the film by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis arrives in Italian cinemas Head or Tails?. We talked about the film with directors Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis.
Produced by Ring Cinema, Cinema Inutiland with the collaboration of Rai Cinema, Testa o Croce? Stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Alessandro Borghi and John C. Reilly.
Heads or tails by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis
The introduction of Heads or Tails? lays the foundations for the connotation of the film. When the voice-over says that the magic of pure storytelling gives rise to great stories, it establishes the founding principle of the story which is based on the evocative power of the word.
In our previous films we have always worked on the story handed down orally, in this film instead we started from the written word and how this is questioned by what we see happen in the film. Rosa is the protagonist and the center of our story but there is also another version of her story that is told by Buffalo Bill.
From the first scene we wanted to question the way the story is told, because often those who tell it are also those who hold power, and from there all the contradictions arise. That's why we started with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, with its distorted account of the conquest of the West and the conflict with the Native Americans.
The Wild West show is the place where the myth of the west was born. From there our idea of deconstructing the western genre was born.
The first images decree that yours is an upside-down world in which bandits become heroes.
We wanted to overturn the genre, taking the classic hero of the western – the cowboy who in Italy we call buttero and who in the film is played by Alessandro Borghi – and put him in crisis. We liked the idea of deconstructing the myth of the cowboy with a bit of irony and giving voice to the character of Rosa, the real protagonist of the story.
The initial flashback
A detail, the latter, that reveals the initial flashback. Not only is it Rosa and not Santino who appears but the fact that she is the one who reads their story in the notebook tells us how she is called to have the last word on what happened. Moreover, Heads or Tails? is built on the comparison of points of view: between the (internal) one of the protagonists of the story and the other, belonging to those who have to pass it on.
Rosa's character embarks on a path of personal liberation from an abusive marriage and oppressive society. The opening scene reveals the dual nature of the film, an intimate one in which Rosa emancipates herself and a public one, in which Buffalo Bill creates his own version of the story. Rosa rebels against everything and everyone.
Speaking of deconstruction, Santino's love for the girl is a typical noir topos, that of the protagonist destined to be overwhelmed by the charm of the dark lady. Heads or Tails? It is a film full of contamination of other genres.
Absolutely. Thinking of making a classic western like those of the past today is impossible. The contamination of genres is natural. Having said that, I'm glad you mentioned noir because I had never thought about it, despite being a great fanatic of the genre. This film reflects our passion for cinema in general, not just westerns.
Themes in the film by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis
One of the great themes of the film is the search for freedom. Rosa yearns for it and is willing to do anything to get it. In some way your cinema corresponds to it for the freedom with which you build it. In this sense, Heads or Tails? is a strongly political film.
Yes, have we always thought of Heads or Tails? As a political film, the western genre has always been characterized by its ability to reflect on the socio-political reality of the moment in which it was produced. The film is set in the early 1900s but the characters and themes are current.
We wanted to tell the story of a society dominated by individualism and violence, the search for fame, and social injustice. Even the most surreal aspects of the film reflect what we think of the present in which we live. We are convinced that there is no need to be realistic or to tell the contemporary world in a didactic way to talk and reflect on what is happening to us today.
Speaking of connection with reality and reflection on the construction of false myths, at a certain point we see Santino become the hero of the revolution without having done anything to be one.
Yes, it is one of the themes that we were interested in exploring in order to overturn the genre and question the figure of the cowboy as a hero. This too seemed to speak to us of the world in which we live.
It is as if he accepts to become a sort of sacrificial victim.
Santino is a man who gets his head up and lets himself be overwhelmed by that unexpected fame for something he didn't actually do. He deludes himself, for a moment, that he can be a hero, but fame blinds him and he ends up losing his mind. At the same time, Santino remains a human and sensitive character, which partly reflects our idea of the role of man today.
If I wanted to establish a comparison with the matrix of the film, I would say that Heads or Tails? is closer to the American cinema of the seventies than to contemporary cinema. Like the Heads or Tails? It does not tell about winning characters but about people who make mistakes and fail.
We are great fans of the cinema of the 70s, which we
consider the freest moment in the history of cinema. Compared to the
characters, indeed all our films are populated by failures and outsiders. We
are more interested in those who do not adapt and question the rules.
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