Previously in the article about "Il volo di Aquilino" we talked about Ignazio Dessì's production company Ju Film and the soft-horror movie "La strega di Belvì" (The witch of Belvì), first of a cycle of stories called "I misteri di Ichnos" (The mysteries of Ichnos). A month ago, Ju Film's YouTube channel released an announcement for the opening of a crowdfunding campaign for the production of the second chapter of the series, "Ombre nella notte" (Shadows in the night).
The cycle of "I misteri di Ichnos" was created to tell Sardinia's myths to the new generations with a modern and captivating approach for the audience. Mentioning the words of the crowdfunding page:
"The generation working with Ju Film may be the last who had the luck of living the emotion of scary stories right from the voice of their own grandparents. We want those characters and legends to not be lost and instead come back to their main target, children. For this we decided to frame them in a series of episodes that narrate them with a language and media close and captivating to the youngest."
The crowdfunding will cover the expenses of the technicians and actors working on the pre-production and production phases of the film. As in many crowdfunding projects, the amount donated corresponds to a reward that each time adds up to the previous prizes tied to a smaller donation. It begins with thanking the donors in the credits, it continues with links to watch the first film and a poster, up to a physical copy in USB pen of the first chapter and the chance of being present during the filming of "Ombre nella notte"! The project of the second chapter started two years ago, during which the planning phase ended, and the pre-production phase is still ongoing, hoping to start with the production as soon as possible.
The first chapter, "La strega di Belvì", was released in the movie theaters in 2018, with a good result regarding the audience's opinion. In the film, a group of kids passionate about mysteries and legends investigate the case of Belvì's newborns, all unusually affected by anemia. In the small village the young investigators meet a few characters of ancient legends, among them the witch Sùrbile and the prankster spirit Maschinganna. Furthermore, a tale is mentioned about an ancient curse affecting the last of seven sisters: she will lose her happiness and humanity, bringing concern and discouragement among the inhabitants, until someone would save her and end the spell.
In an interview at ilsarrabus.news, to the question "What message do you want to send to those that will watch the film?" director Matteo Fadda answered:
"The message is surely to find nourishment in fantasy, imagination and listening to ancient stories. Losing these stories would mean becoming dry and understanding less the world in front of us. Dreaming and being scared listening to an ancient tale or a myth allows us to keep fantasy and imagination alive. With these we can live better. Humankind in any era needs to dream and fantasize, if you can contribute to this, you absolutely need to do it."
I think it's very important to support the local productions, especially if they tell and pass on myths and legends of our popular tradition, so very underutilised. Normally fantasy stories are inspired by Anglo-Saxon or North European folklore, and the inclusion of Sardinian myths bring a breath of fresh air to the genre and introduces them to a new generation! Sardinia has a great amount of myths that could be protagonists of new interesting stories, we already have "S'Ammutadori" and "I misteri di Ichnos", who knows which will be the next legend?
More than a year after the formation of the classes of Nuova Animazione Sardegna’s laboratory, the first results begin to show with a new interesting short film related to the legends of Sardinia.
“S’Ammutadori” is an animated short film of around 10 minutes produced by Flora’s Room, a small animation studio in Oristano. The project was born from the idea by the studio’s founder Francesca Floris, initially developed during her period of formation at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, during which she worked in different Italian film productions. Then, during her master in Visual Anthropology at the University of Siena she worked in the field of animation and special effects: Mission Impossible 7 by Paramount Pictures, 44 Cats by Rainbow and My Brilliant Friend 2 and The New Pope by HBO). A short trailer is currently available in the YouTube channel of Flora’s Room that with its skillful editing gives a preview of the short film’s aesthetic and atmosphere.
The short film’s protagonists are two girls that are attacked in their sleep by S’Ammutadori, the sleep demon, and they have to face the origin of their deepest fears in order to overcome the creature and win the fight.
S’Ammutadori is a character present in Sardinian legends since ancient times; it's speculated that it’s first appearance goes back to 241 b.C. after the descent of the Romans in Sardinia following the defeat of the Carthaginians, and as a result the character would be a derivative of the Roman figure of Incubo. However, testimonies of a creature that acts while you sleep burdening people, usually by sitting on the chest, already existed before this date, thus the origin is not certain.
S’Ammutadori acts on sleeping people, taking your breath away with its weight, leading the victim to wake up. Several witnesses report having terrifying visions once awake, describing the creature in the most varied ways, therefore it doesn’t have a specific appearance because it seems to take the form of what terrorizes you specifically. This legend could have originated to make sense of the phenomenon of sleep paralysis: the mind is awake but the body is already in a sleeping state, you are conscious but cannot move, causing occasional hallucinations due to the lack of oxygen.
In the short film, the two protagonists have to face S’Ammutadori in this limbo between sleep and wakefulness. The story is based on a chapter of the novel “L’ultimo amore di Las” (The World of Las) written by Francesca Floris in 2018. “L’ultimo amore di Las” was born as an exhibition that uses as common thread a ten chapter novel about the love between two young women in a universe with fantasy characteristics. Each chapter has an illustration dedicated, accompanied by a quote from the chapter, followed by a paired photography. In 2019 Officina Libraria published a book about the experimental exhibition, featuring observations and considerations, but especially all the illustrations, pictures and complete novel. This is the brief plot taken from the book:
L’ultimo amore di Las tells in first person the story of a girl and her two wishes: to live her own passion freely and to conquer the woman of her dreams. Las lives in an alternative world, on a planet called Earth of the Truth, where the soul is defined with the name of Holy Body and has its own anatomy that is cured with the same criteria with which you cure the physical body. Las would love to become an artisan of Golden Scars (the equivalent of the prosthesis for the Physical Body) but she can’t go all the way through with this passion because she is affected by a trauma lived in her childhood, that doesn’t let her have the right psychological predisposition to practice such a job. This event had a strong impact on her love life as well, and on the way Las approaches the people she wants to know.
Flora’s Room is currently working on the production of a feature film that adapts the whole novel with the support of Sardegna Film Commission! The studio experiments putting together the aesthetic of 2D animation with the versatility of 3D animation.
3D animation also gives access to the ability to move the camera in real time in space, easily change the angle of the frame and the focal length of the virtual lens. It also gives you the ability to play with the lights in real time and change lighting very quickly. It therefore unlocks a much more cinematic approach with new potential. However, the 2D animation approach leaves much more room for creativity, design and style, thus making it possible to adopt new, distinct and characteristic aesthetics. In “Q” we therefore combined the two worlds to exploit the maximum potential of both. We have created a work pipeline and implemented some techniques in order to obtain the flexibility of 3D, the expressiveness of 2D and combine them in a new visual language.
(From the Flora’s Room website)
From the short film’s Press Kit we can briefly know the whole team of artists working on the production:
Chiara Floris aka BLUEM - COMPOSER Oristano, 1995
Chiara Floris is a Sardinian singer-songwriter and producer. She moved to London in 2014 to study music. There she began writing and producing her own original songs. In 2018 she independently released her debut EP: "Picolina". She spent the following two years writing a nostalgic album, this time in Italian, entitled "NOTTE". In "NOTTE" she combines personal lyrics and a dark sound to a visual work entirely dedicated to her homeland and the memory of her grandmothers. Laura Leitermann - EDITOR Pisa, 1989 Laura Leitermann works as an assistant editor and editor. After completing her high school studies in Lucca, where she grew up, she attended the Photography course at the LABA in Florence. Once graduated, she moved to Rome, where she specialized in video editing, first attending the NUCT and then the CSC. After completing her studies, she began working as an assistant editor on Italian films and TV series, music videos and continued to work as an editor on short films and documentaries. Beatrice Mele - SOUND DESIGNER Nuoro, 1993 Beatrice Mele works as a sound editor for cinema. Once she finished her high school studies, she moved to Pisa to attend university, in the course of Discipline of Entertainment and Communication, graduating in 2017. Once she finished her university course she specialized in Sound for Cinema and Television at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, choosing to focus on sound editing. Lorenzo Consoli - ANIMATOR Rome, 1995 Lorenzo Consoli is a 2D animator and clean-up artist. After completing his high school studies, he attended the animation course at the International School of Comics, in Rome, from 2015 to 2018. He specialized in cut-out animation at the same school in 2019. Since then he's been working on independent animation projects and infographic projects, and alongside Simone Filia, professor of animation at the International School of Comics, as an assistant professor. Cyril Glerum - ANIMATOR La Garenne-Colombes, 1996 Cyril Glerum works as a 2D animator and storyboard artist. He also occasionally works as an illustrator and cartoonist, with particular attention to the Japanese style. After obtaining the double Italian-French high school diploma in Rome, he moved first to Saint-Etienne, then to Eindhoven, and then to Padua, where he began to attend the International School of Comics. He finished his studies in September 2018 at the branch of the school situated in Rome, where he is now based and works. Alessandra Valle - BACKGROUND ARTIST Imperia, 1997 Alessandra Valle works as a background artist and 2D animator. Once she finished her high school studies, she moved to Rome to attend the International School of Comics and specialize in the field of drawing. At the end of the traditional animation and cut-out animation course, she starts working as a freelancer. She also works as a teacher at the Rome branch of the International School of Comics, in the animation course for children and teenagers.
I’m absolutely fascinated by this short film and the bigger story it’s part of, I can’t wait to know more and talk about it here!
