TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES

Jonas Carpignano

A Ciambra

Jonas Carpignano
2017 - Italy / Brazil / Germany - 1h57

Pio is 14 and wants to grow up fast. Just like his older brother Cosimo, he drinks, smokes and is learning his way around petty crime. When the day comes that Cosimo can no longer watch over the family, Pio has to take his place. But this role is too much for, it overwhelms him and means he has to take a painful decision.

A Ciambra takes place in Gioia Tauro, a town in southern Italy, and focuses on the Amato family from the Romani community. Carpignano remembers “the first time I met the Amatos was in 2011, when they stole the Fiat Panda that I'd put all my team's filming equipment in. We were shooting A Chjàna (the short film which would later become Mediterranea) in Gioia Tauro. When a car disappears there, the first thing to do is to “go and see the gypsies”. That's when I discovered Ciambra for the first time. I immediately fell in love with this place, with its energy. Whenever I tell this story Pio always says that he remembers the first time he saw me very well, but me, I can't remember him at all at that time, there were to many things to see. We had to wait 3 days to get the car back again, because Pio's grandfather (the character of Emilian is inspired by him in the film) had just died and they didn't want to negotiate the ransom for the car to be returned before the funeral. The burial must have marked me in some way, as 5 years later I decided to put it in the film. It goes without saying that all of this had such an impact on me that I immediately wrote a first short draft of the script for A Ciambra.” (Jonas Carpignano)

“Although Carpignano's directing is based once again in a documentary approach, his screenwriting has increased in drama. Less archetypal, more embodied and ambiguous, his heroes bring humanity and emotion to this fiery social fiction.”
(Xavier Leherpeur, Le Nouvel Observateur)

CAST AND CREW

Cast : Pio Amato, Iolanda Amato, Koudous Seihon, Damiano Amato, Patrizia Amato
Screenplay : Jonas Carpignano
Cinematography : Tim Curtin
Editing : Affonso Gonçalves
Music : Dan Romer

Production : Stay Gold Features, Stayblack, RT Features, Rai Cinema, DCM Productions, Haut et Court

French distributor : Haut et Court