cinematography
Johan Florez
editing
Desideria Rayner
music
Massimo Martellotta
sound
Giuseppe Tripodi
production design
Ilaria Sadun
costumes
Maya Gili

cast
Luigi Lo Cascio
Claudia Potenza
Riccardo Maiello
George Li

production
Mad Entertainment
Dude Originals
Art of Panic
with Rai Cinema
co-productions
Umedia
Rosebud

producers
Maria Carolina Terzi
Carlo Stella
Lorenza Stella
Luciano Stella
Livio Basoli
Lucia Nicolai
Marcello Paolillo
co-producers
Bastien Sirodot
Cédric Iland
Angelo Laudisa

world sales
True Colours
Italian press office
PUNTOeVIRGOLA

Sauro Cantafame is “the techie”: he drives solo through a lunar southern landscape in his Ape Car, in a borderland between the real and the absurd. His mission? Implant mechanical hearts in deceased oldsters, so their families can pretend they’re still alive and cash their pension checks. He offers a ride to a fragile kid in danger, whose name says it all, as far as his prospects are concerned: Giocondo Infelice. But that gesture raises the hackles of Vito ‘a scimmia, the crime lord who has full control over the territory. Cantafame teaches the kid his strange trade in death, craft, and discontent; while Giocondo breaks out of his shell and finally finds the father he never had. But Cantafame has a few skeletons in his closet and a negative karma to fulfill, which will goad him to defy Vito in order to save his young charge.

2026 Il mestiere
2025 We'll Let You Know (short)
2019 Baradar (short)
2014 I figli della Shoah (doc)

“The Craft is a film about survival – not the heroic kind, not what you see on posters, but small-scale survival, made up of repetitive gestures and rituals propping up a humanity that would otherwise collapse. Sauro Cantafame is a tragic anti-hero who does a job that is illegal, according to the rules, yet sacred of necessity. In his world, death is not the end of a cycle but a resource. The Craft is about a southern Italy you won’t find on any map. A tribal backwater where nothing is black or white, a lawless Far West where the rules do not apply and there’s no distinction between what’s real and what’s made up. The Craft is a film about the fragile border between right and wrong, in a middle ground where the two intersect, albeit blurred and indistinguish-able. Sauro and Giocondo ride through this maze in their red Ape Car, and every stop along the way changes them a little, before they know it.” (Beppe Tufarulo)

Beppe Tufarulo is a multi-award-winning Italian writer and director based in Milan. After starting out at MTV, he carved out a path as a filmmaker, making documentaries and forays into narrative film. His hallmark is a heightened visual sensibility and a concern with stories that are more intimate and deeply human. Tufarulo’s documentaries exploring the worlds of music, sports, and fashion include Ferro, All or Nothing: Juventus, Armani Privé – A View Beyond, Una favola siciliana, and Puglia: Appunti di viaggio. His shorts Baradar and We'll Let You Know have received numerous international awards. The Craft marks his feature directorial debut.