FINALISTS – RODOLFO SONEGO AWARD 2020

Bruno Ugioli – Nickpark

Elisa Orrico & Greta Frontani – Rintra e Fuora

Elettra Sofia Mauri & Tancredi Bua – Battuta D’arresto

Nicolò Orlandini – Avanti o popolo!

Ruben Marciano & Giulio Lepri – Gente con cui devi fare i conti

Giulia Castagnetti – Dietro alla verità

Angelo Calarco & Massimo Pica – Day 3286

Angelo Martucci – Fuori Luogo

Marcello Pedretti & Roberta Martinelli – Riderà

GRETA FRONTANI & ELISA ORRICO

GRETA FRONTANI

24 years on my shoulders, 2 passports in my pocket, 4 zip codes around the planet and a double degree in IR and Anthropology; the first has no good use as I wasn’t able to achieve world peace; the second made me realize what I want to do as a grown-up (like, right now): telling stories. Attempting at hugging Elisa is my favorite extreme sport. I often say my life was better abroad, but after all there must be a reason if I chose to come back. Right?

ELISA ORRICO

25 years that feel like 70, my hair is too pink for its own good, I’m a major weeper and it’s ok if you mispronounce my name. By now I should have graduated from Scuola Holden, but 2020 wears Prada and an LV mask. Fluent in bad movies, Sean Paulish and social distancing, I hate Greta’s hugs and I like quotes about being kind even though I almost never am.

RINTRA E FUORA

After a messy breakup, a 30 something gym rat ends up stuck in his tiny studio, surrounded by the stuff that bitch left behind and alone during the national lockdown. Confined by nosey gossips, old people who don’t give a shit about Covid, and orphaned lipsticks, he’ll have to face the shameless flirting of his next-balcony neighbour and his increasingly weird thoughts. Right, ‘cause with too much time and nail polish on his hands, Tony will soon find out that in the end those lipsticks ain’t that bad. And they’re also perfect for his complexion.

Illustrated by Paolo Beghini

ELETTRA SOFIA MAURI & TANCREDI BUA

ELETTRA SOFIA MAURI

She can easily watch a four-hour Polish film without subtitles, but cannot overcome the discomfort of writing about herself in third person. Despite this, she succeeded in graduating from the Master in International Screenwriting and Production at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and working as an author.

TANCREDI BUA

When he was 2, after a traumatic experience with Bambi, he stopped watching children’s movies and switched to sci-fi while the TV was broadcasting E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial. This shock will make him fall in love with cinematic storytelling. As of today, he devours movies, records and books that are then metabolized and quoted in his ordinary life situations: that is why in a couple of years his name will be followed by the words “syndrome of”.

VICINI

Alfonso is a solitary man, who has never had friends because of his job. Actually, no one really knows what he does for a living, not even Gigi, his annoyingly exuberant neighbor, who with his insistence has managed to become his friend (but Alfonso still doesn’t know). But one day Alfonso gets an email from work. The company he works for is Death, and Gigi is the task he never wanted to complete. What can he do to avoid losing forever the only friend he ever had?

Illustrated by Paolo Gallina

GIULIA CASTAGNETTI

Born in Modena in 1988, after an MA in Foreign Languages, she attends the Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking at Ca’ Foscari University. While working as an assistant director, she attends Course Fiction 2019 for Author of feature films and tv series at Bottega Finzioni in Bologna, and the Course for Production management in cinema and television of Demetra Formazione with Palomar s.p.a.

DIETRO LA VERITÀ

Daniele, a successful 30-year old, is found dead on the roadside. The man describes his life: perfect job, a very good relationship with his boss and an affair with Caterina, his boss’ girlfriend. The investigation will incarcerate Caterina and Daniele’s boss. But is it everything as shown by the evidence? In this dark comedy with hints of Noir, we will discover the point someone could reach in order to change his story and the image other people have of this person.

Illustrated by Serena Mabilia

ANGELO CALARCO & MASSIMO PICA

ANGELO CALARCO

Angelo Calarco is a Video and Film Director and Scriptwriter from Turin with a background as a Comedy Writer and Performer. In Italy, he was in the cast of TV shows such as Bravograzie (Rai Due – 2005 and 2008), Bulldozer (Rai Due – 2005) and Saturday Night Live from Milan (Italia 1 – 2006). In 2010 he moved in UK where he attended the Directing the Comedy course at the National Film & Television School, Steve Kaplan’s Comedy Intensive course at the Raindance Institute and the Short Film Production & Distribution curse at the BAFTA Institute in London. Founder of Beware Of The Dog Films, today he works as a Writer, Producer and Director in Italy and the UK and is also the founder of the Turin-based scriptwriters collective ScripTO!

MASSIMO PICA

Massimo Pica is a Comedian, Actor and Comedy Writer from Turin. He is the founder and administrator of the satire website www.kotiomkin.it and creator of the satirical page Il Morandazzo by Massimo Pica. Writer for many television and non-television comedians nationwide and teacher of the creative comedy writing course at the Accademia del Comico in Turin and Madama Academy. Among his television experiences are Zelig Off (2010/2011), Comedy Central Station (2012/2013), Eccezionale Veramente (finalist – 2015/2016) and Colorado (2020).

DAY 3286

In a dystopic future, where humans are no longer allowed to make decisions and live in complete isolation from one another, Panunzio, an angry and resigned 40-year-old man lives under the control of Brenda, the caring AI who manages life on Earth. Panunzio days flow between music he doesn’t like, food he doesn’t want and unsolicited sex. And by fantasizing about meeting the red-haired girl from the opposite building. Until one day, day 3286, Brenda unexpectedly crashes leaving Panunzio, together with all of humanity, suddenly free.

Illustrated by Memorial Paint

NICOLÓ ORLANDINI

Graduated in Modern Literature in Bologna, he graduated in the Fiction Area of the Bottega Finzioni writing school of Carlo Lucarelli in 2018. At the Catholic University of Milan, in November 2019, he completed his studies of International Screenwriting and Production Master. In February 2020 he was among the winners of the Development Scholarship of the Solinas Experimenta Serie Award, organized in collaboration with Rai Fiction.

AVANTI O POPOLO!

There is a small village in Emilia which still houses a bust of Lenin in the main square. Here lives Gualtiero, an elderly nostalgic and convinced Leninist, who decides, a few days before the municipal elections that could, for the first time in history, bring the right wing to power, to engage in a personal and improbable electoral campaign, involving old friends of the “bar sport”. But his wife Silvana, exasperated, who would like to move, after years of Bolshevik pilgrimages to Moscow, to the warmth of the sea, decides to give her husband an ultimatum: either her or the revolution …

Illustrated by Gennaro Bisogno

BRUNO UGIOLI

He is born in Turin in 1989, works as a filmmaker since the days of DAMS University, makes shorts movies since high school, manufactures gaffes and lousy jokes since elementary school, invents stories from a very early age, and they generally come out a little better than his bio.

NICKPARK

Nick, a 20 years old boy, can’t find parking. While he feels worn out by car horns and inconclusive wandering, days and years go by and situations and characters follow one another. Nick gets married, has a child, divorces and grows old while never really getting out of the car and finding the one place he has looked for his entire life, his rightful place in the world.

Illustrated by Clemente Stio

MARCELLO PEDRETTI & ROBERTA MARTINELLI

Roberta Martinelli (1994, Andria) and Marcello Pedretti (1990, Bologna) met in 2019 at Lucarelli’s school Bottega Finzioni and in 2020 they are finalists at Premio Sonego and CortoSardegna.Martinelli studies screenwriting at Fondazione Fare Cinema, founded by Marco Bellocchio, and is one of the writers of his short film “Se posso permettermi” (2019). Pedretti works as Assistant Director and is the screenwriter of “Ascolta i tuoi occhi” (2017) and “Una tradizione di famiglia” (2019).

RIDERÀ

On the day of Agata’s funeral, the whole town is in the church to say farewell. Her daughter Nunziatina (32), before the last goodbye, wants to vent all her resentment for what she had to endure when the woman was alive. Nunziatina wanted to be a stand up comedian, but her mother prevented her in every way and she was never able to rebel. But, now that her mother can’t stop her, Nunziatina takes the stage and dedicates her first great stand up comedy monologue to her mother from the altar of the church.

Illustrated by Francesca Zanotto

ANGELO MARTUCCI

I am thirty-one years old, in my life I worked in a advertising agency and later as an employee, as a receptionist and as a waiter. An actual downward trend that brought me this far: in the final at the Premio Sonego. I write satirical articles, comic sketches and short films; every now and then I go up on stage and perform, but nothing serious.

FUORI LUOGO

Andrea and Luca, long-time friends, had spent over thirty years of life in the same provincial town. Andrea has become content with the job he’s been doing for the last ten years; Luca, on the other hand, has filled his life with accidental aspirations, one-night stands and colorful shirts without having the courage to take a precise life direction. Andrea is alive. Luca has committed suicide.

 

Luca’s mother, Rosa, and Luca’s elder brother Michelangelo are present at Luca’s wake; plus, of course, a plethora of attendants who have come to pay their not so moving homage. Andrea is there too, high as a kite. He wants to pay tribute to his friend in the way that Luca would have appreciated the most: Andrea is totally, hopelessly, disrespectfully out of bounds.

Illustrated by Andrea Dalla Barba

RUBEN MARCIANO & GIULIO LEPRI

RUBEN MARCIANO

Ruben Marciano (1992) attended the Screenwriting course at the Scuola d’Arte Cinematografica “Gian Maria Volonté” and RAI Master on TV writing. Then, he worked as assistant director and script reader at Fandango and Rodeo Drive. Also, he graduated in Psychology, with a master’s degree thesis about the intimacy of Matteo Salvini.

GIULIO LEPRI

Claudio Zago is a depressed artist. His uncle Sergio Marangon, a wealthy and conceited textile entrepreneur, tries to ennoble him with a meaningful job: looking after his parrot Mefisto.

But in addition to Sergio’s parrot, Zago gains access to his mansion, the perfect set for his last great performance: taking his own life at the height of a large electro-pop show. But he fails. Desolate, he is sitting in his uncle’s favourite chair and receives a phone call: Bigi, an employee sacked by Marangon, who wants to blackmail him with a pressure bomb that is right under the chair. If he gets up… BOOM!

But on the other side of the line is not Marangon, but his nephew Zago, who’s longing to commit suicide.

Will Bigi the blackmailer be able to save Zago’s life or will things get complicated with Marangon’s sudden return home?

GENTE CON CUI DEVI FARE I CONTI

Claudio Zago è un artista depresso. Suo zio Sergio Marangon, ricco e tronfio imprenditore del tessile, prova a nobilitarlo con un lavoro di responsabilità: badare al suo pappagallo Mefisto.

Ma oltre al pappagallo, Zago ottiene accesso alla villa, il set perfetto per la sua ultima grande performance: togliersi la vita al culmine di una grande installazione elettro-pop. Ma fallisce.

Sconfitto, siede sulla poltrona preferita dello zio ricevendo una telefonata: Bigi, ex-dipendente di Marangon, ora esodato, vuole ricattarlo con una bomba a pressione che si trova proprio sotto la poltrona. Se si alza… BOOM!

Ma dall’altra parte della linea non c’è Marangon, bensì suo nipote Zago, aspirante suicida.

Riuscirà Bigi, il bombarolo, a salvargli la vita o le cose si complicheranno con l’improvviso ritorno a casa di Marangon?

Illustrated by Alice Berti