70min | Italy | 2021 Simone is a young man that, even if with hesitations and new awareness, brings forward traditions and memories of a small mountain community that is slowly fading away, while Filippo is trying to distance himself from it, spiritually and mentally.
International TitleThe Children of the Sleeping Giant Year of production 2021 Length 70min Country Italy Shooting Format Digital Aspect Ratio 1.66:1 Dialogue Italian
Director Lorenzo Pallotta Production Limbo Film, Il Varco, Oudeis Pictures, Peperonitto Media Producers Lorenzo Pallotta, Andrea Gatopoulos, Marco Crispano, Stefano Schiavone Executive Producers Andrea Rosasco, Stefano Chiavarini Writer Lorenzo Pallotta Cinematographer Andrea Benjamin Manenti Editor Massimo Da Re Sound Andrea Oppo, Luciano Marzocchella, Alessandra Salvatori Sound Mixing Tommaso Barbaro Music Freddie Murphy, Chiara Lee Cast Filippo Lanci, Simone Caruso, Mattia Caruso
Director's Statement In a historic period where little towns are disappearing along with their ancient traditions, "The Children of the Sleeping Giant" comes to life. A docu-film that tells the story and the destiny of a mountain community that tries to survive by all means. The goal of this film is to show all the main characters’ different points of view. In disparate ways they try to distance themselves from a hierarchical and powerful system that consolidated in this kind of towns with the passing of years. The film, at the beginning, focuses on the concept of responsibility that Simone has towards his community, but then slowly shifts his focus on the theme of violence and how it impacts the characters’ lives. A silent violence that forces Simone to act without even really thinking. The film and the characters’ souls move around these two anguishing themes. A community that is not often shown in the film, but that silently shapes and watches over Simone’s destiny and the ones that interact with him. The film wants to make the viewers feel a sense of oppression and loneliness, through the bewilderment of the characters’ souls, characters that don’t have a real landmark. With the help of the cinematic medium, we decided to tell a multitude of emotions, switching from moving to fixed shots, to get close to the characters’ hidden feelings but, at the same time, to give them freedom to act with the utmost respect. The ultimate goal was to try to create an intentionally magical universe, a middle ground between a dark fairy tale and a coming-of-age film, where viewers can get lost into the dilated pace of an apparent silence, trying to find inside themselves the true meaning of the film. A dark and tragic truth that will probably always exist in such a little and hidden world, but universally understandable.
