Est

by Antonio Pisu

Italy, 2020, 104', color, DCP

Screenplay: Antonio Pisu

Thursday 03 September 2020

21:30 Isola degli Autori Public, free entrance
V.O. ITA sub ENG
Reservation required on giornatedegliautori.com starting from August 31st

taken from the novel Addio Ceausescu
by Maurizio Paganelli and Andrea Riceputi

cinematography
Adrian Silisteanu
editing
Paolo Marzoni

music
Davide Caprelli
sound
Enrico Medri

production design
Paola Zamagni
Iuliana Vilsan
costumes
Magda Accolti
Luminita Mihai

cast
Lodo Guenzi [Rice]
Matteo Gatta [Pago]
Jacopo Costantini [Bibi]

producers
Paolo Rossi Pisu
Maurizio Paganelli
production
Genoma Films
info@genomafilms.it
genomafilms.it

italian
press office
Lionella Bianca Fiorillo
lionella.fiorillo@storyfinders.it
www.storyfinders.it
Stefania Collalto
collalto@echogroup.it
www.echogroup.it

1989: a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Pago, Rice and Bibi, three twenty-five-year-olds from Cesena, leave their quiet lives behind in search of adventure. A ten-day vacation in Eastern Europe means heading to places where the Soviet regime is still in place. Once in Budapest, they meet Emil, in flight from the dictatorship in his native Romania. The man is worried about his family back home and asks the trio for a favor: to take a suitcase to his wife and daughter. The journey is long, towns are deserted, restaurants have no food, and people will give you the shirt off their back out of hospitality. Finally the three Italians arrive in the capital. The moment they open the suitcase in front of Emil's wife Andra, six-year-old daughter Adina, and grandma Costelia is highly emotional. Two months later, just before Christmas, the fall of Ceausescu is announced on television. By now, Pago, Rice and Bibi have returned to their normal lives in Italy.

Est

Filmography

2020 Est

2017 Nobili bugie

When I first read the story of Maurizio Paganelli, Andrea Riceputi and Enrico Boschi, I realized it was one that would resonate with audiences today. When an individualistic society gets to the point that it seems to have no time to lend a hand to a person in need, that's when it's time to stop, take a step back, and think things over. […] Like the rest of the world, Italy pretends it knows nothing about the Rumanian government today, or its past. Using the film medium, that history can be retraced in the eyes of three young Italians, and becomes universal: a metaphor for how little it takes to change one's point of view. It's a window on the ironic fact that what we take for granted every day is nothing more, for most of the world's population, than a magnificent spread just glimpsed from the back row - on tiptoe.

Antonio Pisu took up acting in 2002. Two years later, he landed his first role in Come prima, a medium-length film by Mirko Locatelli, and then starting racking up acting credits in film, television and on the stage. In 2014 he created and starred in the TV series Low Budget. In 2016, with Paolo Rossi Pisu, he co-founded the production company Genoma Films, for which he directed his first film, Nobili bugie, the following year, to critical acclaim. Est is his second feature film.