Alessandro Gassmann, born in Rome, is the son of actor Vittorio Gassman. He is an actor, director and he won the David Donatello award for best supporting actor in Caos calmo..

Regarding this film, Gassmann stated "I have a longstanding collaboration with the best-selling writer Maurizio De Giovanni. I've always felt that De Giovanni's play had strong cinematic roots and potential. We first experienced it in the theatre, where it gave us unforgettable emotions, and now, finally, it comes to life as my third feature film as a director. In this film we talk about family, about inevitable changes, about the passing of time, and we do it in the mid-sixties in Naples, in Posillipo, as we follow a family that has to come to terms with a different life from the comfortable one they've known up to that moment. Il silenzio grande is a film of light and shadow, silences and explosions of words, laughter, visions, and anguish, where everyone talks and nobody really listens".