“EST”
SAFF 2021 Award Winner
1989. A few weeks before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Pago, Rice and Bibi, twenty-four (twenty-five) years old, leave the calm city of Cesena looking for adventure: a ten-days-long holiday in Eastern Europe, in those places where the Soviet regime is still alive. As they get to Budapest, they meet Emil, a Romanian fleeing from the dictatorship in his country. Without knowing what waits for them, is a journey beyond their imagination.
Director Biography
ANTONIO PISU
Son of the actor Raffaele Pisu
and nephew of Mario Pisu, after
many years acting in theater, TV,
fictions, commercials and films
such as Non c’è più niente da
fare and Pupi Avati’s Giovanna’s
Father, in 2014 he was creator
and actor of the TV series Low
Budget, broadcast first by
Studio Universal and then
bought by Rai4. In 2017 he wrote
and directed the film Nobili
Bugie, with the participation of
actors such as Claudia
Cardinale, Giancarlo Giannini
and his father Raffaele Pisu. He
received many recognitions,
among the others the Premio
Kineo for best debut film at the
74° Venice Film Festival, best
comedy at the ITFF and best
screenplay.
Director’s Statement
"None of us have come to where it is solely for hoisting ourselves. We're here because someone bent down and helped us" (T.Marshall)
1989, a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The end of the Soviet regime is in the air. Three guys from a small Italian province decide to take a trip to discover those places that the world ignores. The three friends, in an attempt to help a man and his family, find themselves embarking on an adventure in the Romania of Ceausescu of which they know nothing.
During their journey, they will know many characters who will make them better understood how the Romanian people really are in their daily lives. What are people's dreams and their hopes.
The perception of reality is totally different from the places in Italy where they come from, yet the three friends have only crossed an imaginary line. Through the universal metaphor of the journey we see how the point of view of the characters and consequently the viewer can change very quickly. The superficiality to which we are accustomed every day finds no place where man is condemned only to survival. With a small car and a lot of desire to live, three friends will help people, just because they feel in their hearts that that's the right thing to do.
The stylistic choice of the shoot will be characterized by a frequent use of the hand machine to recreate that feeling of realism in which the viewer can empathize. The photograph will change between the first part of the film, where everything appears light and carefree with sweeter and lighter tones, to the second where the cold colors will accompany a more dramatic story. One of the three main characters will have an old camera with him to shoot. Through the subjective images of what the character will take, you will have the opportunity to use real archive images of that era that will merge with the images of the shooting in order to create an even more powerful suggestion in the viewer.
Italy, like the rest of the world, pretends not to know what the past and present of the Romanian state is. With the cinematic medium it is possible, through the eyes of three young Italians, to retrace the paths of history in a universal story, a metaphor on how little is enough for the point of view to change. A vision of how what we take for granted every day, for a large part of the world's population, is just a great buffet to be admired from the last row on tiptoe.