Short Summary
About the authors:
Giovanni Scarfò is a professor, a writer and a director. He is the director of the Cinematheque of Calabria (in the South of Italy), which he founded. The Cinematheque in recent years has dealt with the recovery, the restoration and the rediscovery of films made by calabrian filmmakers. Among them there is the producer Francesco Misiano. In the 20's he founded in Soviet Union a film company that produced dozens of films, some of them were fundamental to the Soviet cinema of that period. The documentary-film "The Misiano case", directed by Giovanni Scarfò and Eugenio Attanasio, is dedicated to him. Giovanni Scarfò also directed several documentaries, including the award-winning "Melissa 49/99," about the peasant struggles in Calabria in the 50's. As a film critic he wrote and published four volumes.
Nick Mancuso, producer, award winning international, actor and Hollywood veteran of over 300 movies is starring in the role of Corso. He has produced and directed 5 movies, including Real Gangsters, The Resurrection of Tony Gitone, and The Last Gamble. He is also a playwrite and his play God is a Gangster is currently playing at the National Theatre of Romania. Other productions include, Hotel Praha, The Death of Socrates, and Duse. Mr Mancuso has published 3 books including Mediterranean Men and A Gathering of Shades.He has a degree in Psychology and Philosophy and is best known for the NBC series Stingray and the Under Siege movies with Stephan Segal.
He currently resides in Toronto, Canada and New York.
Matteo Scarfò is 26 years old and has a degree in Languages and English Literatures. He loves movies, theatre, art and music since childhood. He worked as an assistant director and a production assistant in Italy, then as a boom operator in New York in 2009 for the film “The Last gamble” directed by Joe Goodavage and starred by Nick Mancuso ("Ticket to Heaven", "Maria Chapdelaine", "Rapid Fire", "Stingray"), John Savage ("Hair", "The deer hunter", "Salvador", "The Godfather: Part III", "The Thin Red Line") and Steven Bauer ("Scarface"). His work as a director includes several music videos, some short films such as “Fantascienza in pillole”, awarded as best film at Epizephiry Film Festival 2007, and “Omega”, based on his short story “The paradox”, contained in the collection “Man eats man” by Matteo Scarfò and Lucia Patrizi, published in 2008, and documentaries. Then he realized the docu-film “Anna, Teresa and the Resistants”(Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbKSWAEMLvc), recently premiered in Rome and in Toronto (ICFF). It is the story of the Italian actress Anna Magnani and of the calabrian immigrant Teresa Gullace, the woman who inspired “Rome, open city”, a masterpiece by Roberto Rossellini. He continued his work as a director and an assistant director for many projects, he also wrote the play “Sea of Stone”, inspired by the poetry of the writer Corrado Alvaro, put on stage in January 2013 in Rome, and the script for a sci-fi movie.
Roberto Stranges is an italian 3D/Vfx & Compositing artist. He was born in Calabria, in the south of Italy, where he still lives. He studied at the Art Institute of Locri, the Art School of Vicenza, and the Art Institute of Valenza in Italy. Since 1999, he has been collaborating with most artists and agencies for the creation of short movies, commercials, videoclips, characters, environments and many others media and 3D assets. In 2009 he won the international design contest 'Hugo Create' by Hugo Boss.
About the project:
Who was Corso?
Gregory Corso was born in 1930 in Greenwich Village in New York. His parents were italian, his mother was from Abruzzo, his father from Calabria. He spent his childhood on the street and in prison. In prison, he discovered literature and began to write poetry. Once out of the prison, he met Allen Ginsberg, who introduced him to the world of the Beat generation. So he started an extreme journey in everyday life, travelling around the world, finding support, depending on the occasions and opportunities, depending on his friends, girls, girlfriends and wives, from whom he had four children.
I would like to make a film about the poetry of Gregory Corso. He was one of the most important American poets of the late twentieth century, Jack Kerouac called him '"the herald of the Beat generation". He is the one who has carried on his shoulders the Beat spirit. He was Beat even before the movement was born, and indeed it has lived it up to the last moment of his life. He had a very difficult life, Corso was born as a Beat, and like a Beat he died, he never ceased to be a Beat, Corso was the poetry he wrote. Probably he was not interested in labels. What does Beat mean? He said "Beat means giving a kick to all the debris with experience". That was just his life. The life of an artist who could not be anything else.
We want to make a movie about Corso's poetry primarily, not a documentary on his life, we want to say especially what his poetry is, and how poetry was related to his life and how it addressed his choices. This movie will not be a biopic movie, it hasn't a classical narrative. This film follows the suggestions, the feelings and the emotions that literature produces. It will be partly realized in "live action" and partly with the green screen technique, developed by the artist Roberto Stranges, because we want to reproduce Gregory's estrangement from the world and the reality. It will be a live-action and a cartoon at the same time (Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znr-Co0Mou8) . We have been working on this film since 2005, we managed to make the first part of it in Italy, now the final one is missing, and it takes place in America. The project could crown a poetic experience began long time ago, which so far has involved so many people.
Your contribution would help achieve the first real movie based only on the poetry of a poet.
What We Need & What You Get
What we need:
we need at least $ 50000 to complete this film.
The costs will be divided as follows:
-payment for the actors John Savage ("Hair", "The deer hunter", "Salvador", "The Godfather: Part III", "The Thin Red Line"), Bill Moseley (“The Devil’s Rejects”, “Halloween”), Sally Kirkland (Oscar nominated for "Anna") and Ray Abruzzo ("The Sopranos", "Mad Men"), respectively in the roles of Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Burroughs, Corso's mother and the storyteller.
-Payment for other actors in smaller roles.
-Required payment for a necessary film crew in New York.
-Payment for accommodation and travels.
-Payment for the catering.
-Makeup and costumes.
-Scenography.
-Cinematography.
-Production Manager in New York.
-Production organization.
-Possible authorizations to shoot in the city of New York.
-The costs of the post-production phase, such as:
3D and post processing
3D modeling
3D texturing
3D lighting
3D animation
3D compositing
3D camera tracking
3D Rendering
2D post production:
Lead Compositing
Lead video editing
Lead Post production
Lead Visual effects
Scenery designer: Roberto Stranges.
-Costs of video editing
-Costs of dubbing
-Costs of sound editing
-Costs of color correction.
All the money will be spent on the film and for the people who work for it.
We will update our contributors for all expenses as the film comes true.
if you can't give money but you want to hep us anyhow, help us spread this fundraiser as you can!