During a scorching summer in the mountains of southern Italy, young, shy Luca develops an attraction for Valerio, an older boy with a passion for motorcycles. The two meet in secret, in the quiet of the countryside just outside the small town where they live. Chasing a desire that slowly escalates into obsession, Luca is forced to come to terms with the blurred boundary between pleasure and violence.
International Title The Motorcycle Year of production 2025 Length 20' CountryItaly/Denmark/Spain Shooting Format Digital Aspect Ratio 4:3 (1.33:1) Dialogue No Dial.
Director Matteo Giampetruzzi Producers Paolo Sideri, Matteo Giampetruzzi Production Company Produzioni Fuoristrada Co-production Companies Nowhere Studios, Fenomenal Productions Co-producers Selma Munksgaard Hansen, Valentin Marcus Andersen Writer Matteo Giampetruzzi CinematographerJens Vantore Editor Manuela Gutiérrez Arrieta Art Director (Production Designer, Costume Designer, Make Up Artist) David Santangelo Sound Recordist and Sound EditorGiovanni Sideri Re-recording Mixer Eugenio Bonemazzi First Assistant Director Valentina Pietrarca Casting Mariadiletta Coco Cast Lorenzo Cutillo, Francesco Filpa, Sara di Bartolomeo, Fabrizio Sorgente
With the Support of Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and Filmværksted Odense
Director's Statement La Moto is a deeply personal short film that explores the unsettling discovery of desire and sexuality through a narrative suspended between reality and imagination, between wakefulness and sleep, and conceived as a summer fairy tale imbued with sensuality and sweat. The idea for the film came from the sense of alienation I experienced as a teenager growing up in a homophobic environment that felt hostile, but also from the desire to reimagine – through cinema and with a queer gaze – the places where I was born and raised in Molise, a small region in Southern Italy, where we eventually shot it. By focusing on Luca’s sexual awakening and the unbalanced relationship he develops with Valerio – an erotic game that gradually turns dangerous – I wanted to reflect on violence (and the ways it is produced and reproduced in our lives), the blurred boundary between desire and obsession, and the consequences of humiliation in the face of cruelty and rejection. I was inspired by the homoerotic fantasy of the motorcyclist – a recurring figure in the history of queer cinema and culture – in order to raise questions about toxic masculinity and its relationship to gay imagery. I wanted to reappropriate this reference by placing it within the specific context of my region, and transform the motorcycle from a symbol of performative masculinity into a queer object: not only an extension of Valerio’s body, but also a means through which Luca imagines erotic possibilities as a way to escape the normativity of the homophobic, male-dominated world around him. The setting and landscape play a central role in the film: the rural space inhabited by the protagonists, suspended between modernity and tradition, shapes their lives and permeates the images of the film.
