cinematography
Fabrizio Ferraro
editing
Fabrizio Ferraro
music
Emiliano Marrocchi
sound
Simone Frati
production design
Federica Formaggi
Carmela Lavorato
costumes
Federica Formaggi
Carmela Lavorato

cast
Gianmaria D’Alessandro
(Jimmy)
Rachele Roggi
(First girl)
Cécile Delamere
(Second girl)
Francesco Pesci
(Francesco, winemaker)
Manuel Di Vecchi Staraz
(Manuel, winemaker)
Ullamp
(Ullamp, The mule)
Marco Fellini
(Pusher)
Antonio Sinisi
(Musician)
Arnaud Theiry
(Day labourer)
Robin Celayes
(Day labourer)

producers
Ottavia Fragnito
Fabrizio Ferraro
Fabio Parente
co-producers
Marcello Fagiani
Antonio Sinisi
production
Boudu
co-production
Limen Shine
in collaboration with
Virages Films Paris

world sales and
Italian distribution
Boudu
boudu@boudu.it
www.boudufilm.net

international and
Italian press office
Graziella Travaglini
pressboudu@gmail.com

A young man crosses Europe in search of a new Ithaca. Disillusioned with his own country, he moves from a meager grape harvest in arid Banyuls-sur-mer to Brussels and a seductive, if wistful, encounter with a young woman there. Lastly, he hides out in a soulless suite in a Rotterdam skyscraper, where, like an angel of death, he sets in motion a grisly game seasoned with drugs and a digital daze.

2024 Desert suite
2023 Wanted
2022 I morti rimangono con la loro bocca aperta
2021 La veduta luminosa
2020 Checkpoint Berlin (doc)
2018 Les Unwanted de Europa
2017 Colossale sentimento (doc)
2016 SebastianO
2015 Wenn aus dem Himmel… (doc)
2013 Quattro notti di uno straniero
2011 Penultimo paesaggio
2010 Piano sul pianeta – malgrado tutto, coraggio Francesco!
2009 Je suis Simone – La condition ouvrière (doc)
2006/2008 Tetralogia di film-studio sull’amatorialità (doc)

“Dear Fabrizio, I was amazed by your film. […] What fascinates me the most is its vertical structure, since, for the first time, the ‘bottom’ – the tectonic gods, the earth, the wine, and even the view from above of men toiling, hunched over, like animals – is the top, while the top level – the 30th floor in Rotterdam, with its stairways, the helicopters, and the delirious drug dream itself – is the real bottom. The film is bleak and bereft of any hope at all, since in this grand vertical Odyssey there is no homecoming; Ithaca, in the form of the vineyards of Banyuls, no longer exists, reduced to smoke and ash. I can’t stop seeing Homer all over this film. […] And that’s what the entire film comes down to: an initiation into the mystery of the visible, where appearances are always deceiving.” [from a letter by director Pablo Sigg]

Most of Fabrizio Ferraro’s films have been selected for European festivals such as the Berlinale, IFFR Rotterdam, Viennale, the Rome Film Fest, Torino Film Festival, FidMarseille, and Cinéma du Réel. His titles have also been screened at the leading film libraries (Lisbon, Barcelona and Lubiana, as well as ZKM, the Museo del Cinema in Turin and the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome). From 2011 to 2022, he directed eight narrative features and four creative documentaries. In 2009, he received a special mention for Je suis Simone – La condition ouvrière al Torino Film Festival, while in October 2021, the Viennale arranged a retrospective of his films entitled “Cinematography: Thoughts and imagination”. In 2023, Ferraro won the Premio Speciale Gabbiano at the Bellaria Film Festival. Desert Suite develops a new series of films (which includes Wanted) that will be paired with the Indesiderati (Unwanted) series that is ongoing.