Agostino Ferrente

It's Christmas. Mario, a forty-year-old unemployed grandfather who lives by his wits but has an equally chronic dream of becoming an actor, is hired as a caretaker (sixteen hours a day) of a grotesque nativity scene set up on the main street of Bari by a photographer who uses it as a backdrop for photographing children. For us, it's a great opportunity to make a documentary about him... But for Mario, too, we are an excellent opportunity to make his film, the dream he had in his drawer, the film about his life: we are his crew and he is the director! The result is a constant battle: between us, who want moments of the real Mario, the cheerful and optimistic one despite the objective difficulties of his existence, and him, who proposes a tragic but partial Mario, convinced that by loading his testimony with suffering and melodrama, the story of his life will have more appeal...

Naples 1999, two boys and two girls full of hope. Naples 2013, the same protagonists disenchanted in a paralyzed city.

"Andrea is a quirky, lonely, misfit and romantic individual who lives his life as if it were a black-and-white film, perpetually “out-of-sync” with the world around him... In the sultry, scorching August heat, he ventures by bicycle into a semi-deserted Rome, populated by a few surviving students, many elderly people and foreigners who cannot afford to vacation. Andrea intends to reach a supermarket where he can buy cans of tuna fish with which to continue accumulating points that will win him the mysterious “Happiness Coupon.” But if, among magical encounters, vicissitudes and bizarre happenings, reaching happiness is always a dream, pursuing it may turn out to be a nightmare... Besides, are we sure that, as they say, happiness makes one happy?"

"Andrea is a quirky, lonely, misfit and romantic individual who lives his life as if it were a black-and-white film, perpetually “out-of-sync” with the world around him... In the sultry, scorching August heat, he ventures by bicycle into a semi-deserted Rome, populated by a few surviving students, many elderly people and foreigners who cannot afford to vacation. Andrea intends to reach a supermarket where he can buy cans of tuna fish with which to continue accumulating points that will win him the mysterious “Happiness Coupon.” But if, among magical encounters, vicissitudes and bizarre happenings, reaching happiness is always a dream, pursuing it may turn out to be a nightmare... Besides, are we sure that, as they say, happiness makes one happy?"

It's Christmas. Mario, a forty-year-old unemployed grandfather who lives by his wits but has an equally chronic dream of becoming an actor, is hired as a caretaker (sixteen hours a day) of a grotesque nativity scene set up on the main street of Bari by a photographer who uses it as a backdrop for photographing children. For us, it's a great opportunity to make a documentary about him... But for Mario, too, we are an excellent opportunity to make his film, the dream he had in his drawer, the film about his life: we are his crew and he is the director! The result is a constant battle: between us, who want moments of the real Mario, the cheerful and optimistic one despite the objective difficulties of his existence, and him, who proposes a tragic but partial Mario, convinced that by loading his testimony with suffering and melodrama, the story of his life will have more appeal...

Naples, Trajan's district. Initially it was intended for the inhabitants of the shantytowns on the seafront of Naples, who were homeless after the war. But it soon became a kind of ghetto. Alessandro and Pietro are two teenagers who film with an iPhone to tell their difficult neighborhood, their daily life, the friendship that binds them.

Naples, Trajan's district. Initially it was intended for the inhabitants of the shantytowns on the seafront of Naples, who were homeless after the war. But it soon became a kind of ghetto. Alessandro and Pietro are two teenagers who film with an iPhone to tell their difficult neighborhood, their daily life, the friendship that binds them.

Naples 1999, two boys and two girls full of hope. Naples 2013, the same protagonists disenchanted in a paralyzed city.

Naples 1999, two boys and two girls full of hope. Naples 2013, the same protagonists disenchanted in a paralyzed city.