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PRODUCTION / FUNDING Italy

Roan Johnson is back on set co-directing with musician Dade

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- The English-Italian director is working alongside the Turin-based musician and record producer to create an experimental work fusing visual tale and music

Roan Johnson is back on set co-directing with musician Dade
Director Roan Johnson, actor Lorenzo Aloi and musician Dade on the set of the film (© Marco Piovanotto/Movimenti Production/Red Joint/Emotion Network/Rai Cinema)

After a 4-week period in Turin, shooting has wrapped on the movie which has seen Turin-based musician and record producer Davide Pavanello, known as Dade, stepping behind the cameras for the very first time and teaming up with screenwriter and director Roan Johnson, who was in Turin fifteen years ago filming The First on the List [+see also:
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]
. Recently involved in the TV series I delitti del BarLume, Johnson is returning to film after 2021’s #Stayhome [+see also:
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]
and Piuma [+see also:
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trailer
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]
, the latter of which competed in Venice in 2016.

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The feature film whose title is yet to be formalised sees Lorenzo Aloi – known for his part in the Netflix series Fidelity and as the protagonist of Beatrice Baldacci’s first work in 2022, The Den [+see also:
film review
trailer
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]
– playing Sami, a young delivery driver who glides through the streets of Milan each and every day. On New Year’s Eve, when the city is an explosion of lights and celebrations, the young man delivers an enormous sushi order to a luxurious villa in the north of the city.  Following an invitation to stay for the evening, Sami meets Nia – played by indie-pop singer Kaze – and immediately feels a connection with her.  But as his first love takes its first steps, an impulsive decision has fatal consequences, and Sami must decide whether to face the repercussions of his actions.

The film’s images and music play a crucial role, thanks not least to a cast involving artists along the lines of Levante, Margherita Vicario (Gloria! [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Margherita Vicario
film profile
]
), Kyshan Wilson and Rosa Chemical (playing himself), alongside well-known actor Claudio Santamaria (awarded a David di Donatello for Best Actor thanks to They Call Me Jeeg [+see also:
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trailer
making of
interview: Gabriele Mainetti
film profile
]
and recently seen in the box office champion Madly [+see also:
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film profile
]
).

A metropolitan story – according to the production team – with an original and innovative appeal which uses its soundtrack as a primary narrative tool, the film is an experimental work fusing visual tale and music, blending unreleased tracks from the rap and pop world into the storyline, which sees the same actors delivering a roller coaster of sung verses and rhythmic lines, and in which the soundtrack turns into the story itself rather than merely accompanying it.

Photography is by Gianluca Palma, editing falls to Paolo Landolfi and set design is the work of Lonie Heys Cerchio, while costumes are designed by Francesca Cibischino. The feature is being produced by Giorgio Scorza on behalf of Movimenti Production, by Carlo Sgarzi for Red Joint, and by Mattia Mor for Emotion Network together with RAI Cinema, with support from the Piemonte Film TV Fund and the Film Commission Torino Piemonte.

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(Translated from Italian)

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