From 1991 to 1998, Gianfranco Pannone directed his Trilogia dell'America (Piccola America, Lettere dall'America, L'America a Roma) and in 2001 the film Latina/Littoria, Best Documentary at the Torino Film Festival. His medium- and feature-length credits include L'esercito più piccolo del mondo (2015, Special Silver Ribbon) and Lascia stare i santi (2016, Premio Mario Gallo). His films have been selected for numerous Italian and international festivals. Pannone teaches directing for the Master's in film and television at the Università Suor Orsola Benincasa, at the Drama, Art and Music program at Roma Tre University and at the CSC - National Film School in Rome and Palermo.
A musician and ethnomusicologist, as a concert performer Ambrogio Sparagna toured extensively starting in the early 1980s, releasing over twenty albums. From 2004 to 2006 he was the Music Director of the Festival of the Night of the Taranta, and in 2007 he founded the Orchestra Popolare Italiana at Rome's Auditorium Parco della Musica. During his residency at the Parco della Musica, Sparagna has composed roughly fifty original productions that have toured to widespread critical and audience acclaim.
"Folk songs and war diaries used to show, humorously at times, the strained relationship between the Italian people, the military, and power at large: this is what we set out to do, with the larger picture of a universal hymn to peace ever in our sights. We believe that Italy's tortured and often bloody history, over the course of two thousand years, could well serve as a warning for one and all, if you think of the complex conflicts playing out in our own particularly trying times." [Gianfranco Pannone]
