/ Director
Daniele Gangemi
/ Cast
Alessandro Haber, Corrado Fortuna, Regina Orioli, Vincenzo Crivello, Valentina Carnelutti
/ Music
Giuliano Sangiorgi
/ Producer
Grazia Rendo
/ Length
80 min.
/ Year
2008
/ Sponsor
Date :: Saturday, October 31 [Halloween]
Time :: 7:00 pm
Location :: MoPA in Balboa Park
Cost :: $5.00 donation suggested
Language :: Italian with English subtitles
Tickets :: On location
Una notte blu cobalto
Cobalt Blue Night
Our hero Dino Malaspina (Corrado Fortuna) wakes up being not very heroic – he’s depressed, crying, and clinging to his fantasies like a baby latched on to its bottle, even though the bottle is empty. Tears might be normal for a baby, but how does a young man get past that moment, jump over his depression, find some new nourishment, maybe grow up? How does he get over being rejected by the beautiful Valeria (Regina Orioli) and move on with life?
He wanders the streets of Catania at night until he finds a mystical pizza parlor, or rather, a wizard pizza maker Turi (Alessandro Haber) who, pipe in hand, needs to hire a new delivery boy, dishes out curt commands and seems to have a somewhat desperate clientele who need that magic pizza from La Blu Cobalto. And Dino, struggling with a busted love affair, unable to get past his own misery, is left with nothing but his nocturnal delivery duties. In fact, he begins to discover that those people to whom he’s bringing this tasty pizza all seem to be a bit strange, quite lonely, and maybe a bit addicted to the pizza. Is there something else being delivered with the pizza?
Dino has not seen his own depression as an addiction, but as he drives around the spooky Baroque city, up and down dark ways and mysterious places, encounters strange folks and parties where people he’s just met seem to make odd appearances, he makes choices that slowly put him into action again. So that finally he puts himself entirely in the hands of the wizard who, with blue bubbles galore, gives Dino the chance to take a deep look into himself and find a way out of his misery.
This is a night for shedding old habits, for marching steadily on, for giving up baby bottles and setting sail for new destinations. With a little magical realism, and the help of a magical bubbling night, Dino finds his way to a new day.
Like other movies shown at the SDIFF, this film was produced completely locally, with business people of the city joining to give a young filmmaker Daniele Gangemi the opportunity for his first feature length film. The musician Giuliano Sangiorgi, of the famed Italian rock group Negramaro by chance encountered the production and loved it so much that he volunteered to compose the film’s soundtrack.
This film, besides having a fun ride on the theme of a young adult coming of age, also is rooted in the home town of Catania. All the locations are in this fabled city, and the director and producers belong to this city. The film’s background also helps underscore the growing need for local involvement in movie-making in Italy.
So what do we find new there? Perhaps a lesson about the full circle of communication and art: Italians not only want to watch movies, they want to make them as much as watch them. They want to show off their own beloved paese and keep their talent at home. The film was shot in HD and is released in 35 mm. While the film is a dark hymn to Catania after hours, it is also a celebration of independence and exuberant creativity expressed in a very local way. This film is showing on Saturday, October 31, 7pm at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park.
BRANDING: MIRIELLO GRAFICO // WEB DESIGN + MARKETING: JACOB TYLER CREATIVE GROUP
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