My Name Is Tanino is a 2002 comedy film directed by Paolo Virzì. The picaresque plot is about Tanino, an Italian liberal arts student who falls in love with a young American tourist he meets in Sicily and decides to track her down in the United States.
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Plot
Gaetano Mendolìa, nicknamed Tanino, is a native of the fictional Castelluzzo del Golfo, a small seaside resort in the province of Trapani, Sicily. He studies cinematography in Rome and dreams of becoming a movie director.
He meets Sally, an American girl vacationing in Italy, with whom he has a brief romance. At the end of her vacation, Sally returns to the fictional Seaport, Rhode Island, but forgets her camera in Italy. Tanino decides to travel to the US under the pretext of returning Sally's camera to her but in addition to avoiding Italian military service, which was mandatory at the time of the film. He leaves at night without telling anyone.
After arriving in America, Tanino has a series of adventures with the somewhat shady Li Causi family, Italian-Americans living in the US. Eventually, he leaves them and finally meets up with Sally and her "perfect" White Anglo-Saxon Protestant family, confounding them with his antics.
Later, Tanino escapes the clutches of the FBI by riding on the roof of a train and arrives in New York City where he meets his idol, director Seymour Chinawsky. However, Chinawsky is reduced to poverty and dies soon after promising to make a film with Tanino.
Despite Tanino's many misadventures, he always comes out on top because of his ingenuity.
Cast
Corrado Fortuna: Tanino Mendolia
Rachel McAdams: Sally Garfield
Frank Crudele: Angelo Maria Li Causi
Licinia Lentini: Marinella, mother of Tanino
Mary Long: Santa Li Causi
Beau Starr: Omobono
Jessica De Marco: Angelina
Lori Hallier: Leslie Garfield
Barry Flatman: Mr. Garfield
Don Francks: Chinawsky
Danielle Bouffard: Jane Garfield
Meredith Ostrom: Melissa
Genio Carbone: Rosario
Marco Erler: Carmelo, sodale di Rosario