cinematography
Matteo Delai
Andrea Sorini
editing
Fabio Bobbio
Federico Francioni
Samuele Sestieri
sound
Francesco Murano
production design
Brunella De Cola
costumes
Chiara Corradini

cast
Carlotta Velda Mei (Chiara)
Stefano Macchi (Speaker)
Alessandro Colombo (Elia)
Laura Sinceri (Laura)
Fabrizio Ciavoni (Fabrizio)
Laura Nardi (Chiara's Mother)
Nikolai Selikovsky (Nikolai)
Mauro Santini
(Chiara's Father)

production
Mario Cattaneo
producer
Mario Cattaneo
in association with
Hubris Pictures

Italian and International
press office
Gloria Zerbinati

Three months in the life of Chiara, an actress pushing forty and trying to find her way in a bustling Rome overrun by tourists. Invisible, precarious, Chiara restlessly piles up one experience after another, searching for the thing that will make her feel alive.

Federico Francioni
2026 Si sveglia e sbadiglia, il gatto; poi l’amore
2021 Rue Garibaldi (doc)
2021 Akouchetame (short)
2018 Octavia
(short, directed with Yan Cheng)
2017 The First Shot
(doc, directed with Yan Cheng)
2016 Tomba del tuffatore
(short, directed with Yan Cheng)

Samuele Sestieri
2026 Si sveglia e sbadiglia, il gatto; poi l’amore
2021 Lumina
2012 Danza al tramonto (short)
2018 Matrioska (short)
2018 Appunti di viaggio (doc)
2015 I racconti dell’orso
(directed with Olmo Amato)

“This film springs from daily lives that are unstable and precarious: our own. Against the backdrop of a city, Rome, that is more and more ruthless, we wanted to conjure up the nightmares, fears, and premonitions that plague us. It’s a sort of exorcism enacted together with our lead actress, Carlotta Velda Mei, an electric physical presence at large in a city in ruins. Carlotta plays Chiara, a thirty-something, almost forty, who needs to adapt to survive, humiliated by a city that can’t seem to generate meaning. We sought out a gleam of hope in the folds of the present, with the idea of a film as a picaresque adventure story, amidst algorithms, triumphant declarations, and images generated and de-generated by AI. We wanted a furious film that decidedly breaks the mold of contemporary Italian films getting produced today. No pitches, no script labs: just sixty-five days of shooting over one year, a bold crew that was game, a cast of our friends. We found ourselves enjoying telling these stories, playing at filmmaking and sharing our own takes on this particular time in history. In our own way, we were trying to be free.” (Federico Francioni, Samuele Sestieri)

Federico Francioni (Campobasso, 1988) graduated from the CSC – National Film School. He co-directed, with Yan Cheng, the documentaries Tomba del tuffatore, The First Shot, and the short Octavia, promoted by the Chicago Film Archive. In 2021, his Rue Garibaldi won the Best Italian Documentary Award at Torino. He and Gaël de Fournas made the documentary Dar L Walid.

Samuele Sestieri (Rome, 1989) has directed several short films, such as Danza al tramonto and Matrioska. His first film, I racconti dell’orso (2015), which he co-directed with Olmo Amato, was screened at numerous international festivals, including Torino and Rotterdam Film Festival. His second film, Lumina (2021) was selected for IFFR and the Pesaro Film Festival.