12 novembre > SALA 2 ore 17

Italy – 2020 – colore – 84’

CREDITS

Direction: Antonio Palumbo

Screenplay: Antonio Palumbo

Cinematography: Luca La Vopa

Editing: Francesca Sofia Allegra

Set design: Francesca Carmelini

Original music: Ivan Iusco

Costumes: Eva Palmisano

Cast: Antonio Palumbo, Teodosio Barresi, Totò Onnis, Olga Luce, Murat Saraç e con and with Padre Gerardo Cioffari, Nico Cirasola, Antonio Decaro, Elisa Barrucchieri, Padre Bova, Nicola La Gioia, Jim Rosenthal, Dries Van Der Berg, Henk Helsloot, John Berends, Markus Vankan, Geert Vandenhende, Luc Vermeulen, Herman Cole, Marcel Jannsens, Marc Boon, Frans Van Overveldt, Miepol de Roeck, Laurent Hénart, Emilie Francois, Sylviane Kiegey, Hans Peter Rust, Suleyman Topçu, Metropolito Hristosomos Kalayci

Producer: Francesco Lopez

Production: Oz Film  with the contribution of Apulia Film Commission in association with Fidanzia Sistemi

SYNOPSIS

Antonio, a filmmaker with a lack of new ideas has a vision of the patron saint of the city, San Nicola, that asks him to make a movie about his real story. So Antonio, in the footsteps of the myth, crosses all the nations where the saint is revered: Turkey, Belgium, Holland, France, Russia, to get to the United States where the saint is best known as Santa Claus. A trip between a melting-pot of cultures and folklore, with their contradictions, a journey among the colors and the religious rigors mixed together, thus giving life to a sacre character who represents at the same time a consumerist model.

THE DIRECTOR: ANTONIO PALUMBO

Born in Bari in 1973, he attended the theatre workshop for actors and playwrights at Kismet Theatre in Bari and studied acting in Rome. He debuted as an actor in Bell’epoker by N. Cirasola (2000), then he appeared in My Name is Tanino (2001) by P. Virzì, and in the TV series La scelta di Laura (2008) by A. Piva and Squadra Antimafia (2012-6). He wrote and directed Bossolo (2004), a play that won numerous awards. He made his directorial debut with the short film Scusa (2010). In 2015 he wrote and shot, together with Mariangela Barbanente, the documentary film Varichina – La vera storia della finta vita di Lorenzo De Santis (2017), which premiered at Biografilm Festival and was then released in cinemas, receiving several accolades including being a finalist at the Silver Ribbon Awards. He directed the short film Emoticon. He is also currently a Teaching Coordinator at Centro di Formazione Cinematografico Nazionale (Italian National Film Training Centre) in Rome, where he has been a teacher since 2011.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

“The cult of St. Nicholas is colourful, solemn, noisy, meditative, immense. From Orthodox contemplation to the noisy alleys of the old town of Bari, the French region of Lorraine, Flanders, through icy Holland and the lights of the United States. The style of the documentary aims to mirror the melting pot, the contradictions, the colours and the cold rigour that contrast each other when investigating the history of a religious symbol that has become folklore as well as a symbol of consumerism, remaining both. I previously directed a documentary film, Varichina, in which I was careful to blend and mix reality and fiction. I liked to use the same prerogatives: to bring in the most authoritative witnesses, emptying them of their haughtiness and, on the contrary, to confer a weird authority on common people and their ipse dixit. Because a cult, be it religious or folkloric, grows and transforms through these passages, between the written tradition and the handed down one, which is often the result of a wrong understanding or of a random mentor.”

FILMOGRAPHY

2010 Scusa (short)

2012 New Dawn (videoclip)

2017 Varichina (docufilm)

2017 Emoticon (short)

2020 Nicola – cozze, kebab & cocacola (docufilm)