Italy

RIPARO

CREDITS 

35mm - colore - 105’

Direction: Marco Simon Puccioni
Script: Clara Ferri, Monica Rametta
Screenplay: Marco Piccioni, Monica Rametta with the collaboration of Heidrun Schleef
Photography: Tarek Ben Abdallah
Original Musics: Cristiano Fracaro
Editing: Roberto Missiroli
Set design: Emita Frigato
Costumes: Ludovica Amati
Cast: Maria De Medeiros, Antonia Liskova, Mounir Ouadi , Vitaliano Trevisan , Gisella Burinato.
Producer: Mario Mazzarotto
Production: Intelfilm srl,  Via Ostiense 81 a - 00154 Roma, tel. 06.5756000; fax. 06.5754679
Coproducers: Francesca Van Der Staay, Frederic Podetti Coproduction: ADESIF
World sales: WIDE Management Tel: 331 53 95 04 64; fax: 331 53 95 04 65; cell: 33 6 60 43 96 86; website: widemanagement.com

SYNOPSIS

The protagonists of this story are three: Anna, a well-off, 35-year-old middle-class woman, owner of a factory in the North-East of Italy, with her mother and brother. The latter has a love affair with 25-year-old Mara, one of his workers. Anis, a young Maghrebian, bursts into their lives. Coming back from a holiday abroad, Anna and Mara realise that the young immigrant has slipped into their car in order to cross the border.
Anis, this is the name of the boy, says that he has lost his parents and that he wants to reach an uncle of his in Milan. Things do not go smoothly and the boy goes back to the two women; slowly, appealling to Anna’s unexpressed desire to have a child, he gets more and more into their family.

THE DIRECTOR: MARCO SIMON PUCCIONI

Graduated in Architecture in Rome and in Cinematographic Direction in Los Angeles (CalArts), he teaches Direction at the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia. He has shot several short films and documentaries witnessing
his strong interest in a cinema linked to social issues and to the creation of a personal cinematographic language centred on existential and affective themes. In 1996 he founds the association Cinema Senza Confini and conceives the Project Intolerance: a continuous, collective film-catalogue against the intolerance involving over 50 authors of Italian cinema.
In 1998/99 he realises Sell Your Body, Now!, taken from a short story by Strega Prize winner Alessandro Barbero, that receives several international awards.
His first feature film Quello che cerchi, has been received by the press as one of the best recent début films and has received a nomination to David di Donatello Prize 2003 as Best Débutant Director.
From 2002 to 2006 he realises four documentaries:  Tuttigiorni, La Fortezza vista da basso, La Divina Commedia secondo La Fura dels Baus e 100 ANNI della nostra storia. In 2004 he presents to Venice Film Festival the medium-length film Corpo Immagine with  Piera Degli Esposti and Nicolas Vaporidis. Still in 2004 he is the founder and promoter of RING, forum of independent film-makers.
In 2006 the short film Letter#2: Berlino '89, un diario di viaggio is shown to MoMa in New York.

DIRECTORS’ NOTES

“Riparo” stands for a shelter, a job, a family, but this term, reassuring on the one hand, disquieting on the other, represents above all an aspiration to human dignity.
The three characters in their everyday lives, that apparently look like trivial routine, suffer from the lack of something which is the respect for themselves, and this is what Anis, Mara and to a great extent Anna are looking for.
The film makes its own way constantly spying on the characters and grasping to realism. I tried to portray respectfully the characters’ humanity and the ambiguousness of reality, not intrusively, thus renouncing to a more complex language, so that the spectator could be at his ease and approach the intimacy of the characters, and could observe without judging a priori.

FILMOGRAPHY

Fiction:
2007 Riparo
2002 Quello che cerchi
2004 Corpo Immagine, mm
1998 Sell Your Body, Now!, cm
1996 Intolerance - sguardi del cinema sull'intolleranza , lm – cm
1992 The Blue Fiction, mm
1990 Letter#2: Berlino '89, cm
1989 Concertino, cm
Documentaries:
2006 100 anni della nostra storia
2003 La fortezza vista da basso
1991 A Light on the path
2002 La divina commedia secondo la Fura del Baus
2002 Palestina : Tuttigiorni
1997 Partigiani!

SELECTED FESTIVAL AND AWARDS

2002-2003 Quello che cerchi - David di Donatello: nomination as Best Débutant Film Director; Los Angeles Film Festivals (Laifa), Vieste (Italian Cinema Festival), Villerupt (Festival du Cinéma Italien – Prix du Jury des Jeunes) Best Film; Noir, Courmayeur 2001: Best Actor (Marcello Mazzarella); Lecce FCE  2002 Best Photography (Paolo Ferrari).
1999-2000 Sell Your Body, Now! - Siena, Paris, Buenos Aires, Clorofilla, Imola, Trieste: Best Film
1997-98 Intolerance: Sguardi Del Cinema Sull’intolleranza - Rome 1997: Cinema and Society Award; Bruxelles 1998: Phil Collins Award -Toyota; Ceprano 2000: Best Film, Director, Editing.
1998 Il Treno Delle Meraviglie! – Vendome: Best Film
1992 The Blue Fiction - Torino Film Festival: Audience Award