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Stork Day / È già ieri

Stork Day title card

Year - 2004
Studio - Cattleya, Flamenco Films S.A., Stork Day UK Limited
Stars - Antonio Albanes, Fabio De Luigi, Goya Toled, Asunción Balaguer
Director - Giulio Manfredonia
Writing Credits - Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis, Valentina Capecci, Giulio Manfredonia, Andrés M. Koppel,
Music - Mario de Benito

Synopsis

Filippo (Antonio Albanese) is a jaded, sarcastic and cranky host of a nature series on Italian television. The station manager sends him on a field assignment to the Canary Islands to cover what he says is a major story about the many storks nesting there. He leaves, accompanied by his cameraman, Enrico (Fabio De Luigi), who drew the short straw for the assignment. They arrive by boat, expecting a welcoming committee, but are met only by the local biologist, Rita (Goya Toled) who is not impressed with Filippo's pomposity. She tells them that they will go to the stork location early the following morning.

Filippo is awakened in his hotel at 7:00am to the sounds of a DJ on his clock radio. He is warmly greeted by the hotel manager, Rosa (Asunción Balaguer) in the dining room, but he responds rudely. When he arrives at the waiting truck, Rita scolds him for wasting everyone's time. They travel to the stork nesting area, and Filippo is angry to discover there are only eight storks. The begin filming and Rita warns him not to get too close to the stork eggs. But he picks one up and an angry stork dive bombs him.

Stork Day poster

Returning to town, Filippo rushes to the boat, anxious to leave the island. But high waves signal an approaching storm, making departure impossible. He grudgingly returns to the hotel to wait until the following day.

The next morning, he awakens to the same sounds on the clock radio, and assumes the station has mistakenly played the same tape as the previous day. But as he leaves his room to go to the dining room, he encounters the exact same characters and situations as the previous day, including the greeting by the manager, Rosa. He goes to the tour truck and is berated by Rita for being late, exactly as before. He begins to realize that he is re-living the day, August 13, all over again. This time he rushes through the stork story and runs to the boat, hoping to beat the storm, but it is too late. The next morning is the same, but he skips the stork assignment and goes directly to the boat. But it has motor problems and is unable to launch.

Filippo continues to experience August 13 over and over, apparently for weeks if not years. He tries out various behaviors, positive and negative, to deal with the redundancy of his life. When an elderly man dies of a heart attack, he attempts to prevent the event on subsequent days, without success, realizing that the best he can do is to make the man's last day a very good one. He treats Rosa with uncommon kindness and accompanies her to the market for her daily food purchases. He wants Rita to have a romantic interest in him, but all his attempts are seen by her as shallow. He eventually succeeds in convincing her about his being stuck in a time loop, by demonstrating predictions about events about to take place. She is impressed and returns to his room with him. When they awake the next morning, it is a new day, August 14. She suggests that he needed her to move ahead in his life.

Show Spoilers

Trailer

Stork Day is, of course, a remake of Groundhog Day. The opening scene has Filippo being filmed for a feature about groundhogs, which he aborts, complaining that the animal's color isn't compatible with his jacket.