Animale | Umano (Animal I Human) is a drama/coming of age film, a story about the passage from childhood to adulthood in which a symbolic relationship unfolds between Matteo and the calf Fandango, until man and animal actually meet. First fiction work by the director Alessandro Pugno, it will coming to Italian cinemas with Draka Distribution from 11 July.
Written by Alessandro Pugno and Natacha Kucic (finalist for the Solinas Award 2015), selected in competition at the 42nd edition of the Bellaria Film Festival (as well as at the 38th Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata and at the 20th Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla ) the film is an international co-production Italy/Spain/Mexico, produced by Daniele Segre and Daniele De Cicco for Redibis Film (IT) in co-production with Pecado Films (SP), First Draft (SP), Una Comunión (MEX).
“Animale | Umano - declares director Alessandro Pugno – is a cinematographic work that uses bullfighting as a narrative pretext to tell a timeless and universal story, which calls into question the definitions of “animal” and “human” to ask what they have in common“.
Do we have to become heroes to be men?
In a small town in northern Italy, a child, Matteo, grows up surrounded by coffins and with a seriously ill mother. He dreams of going away and dying as a hero in an arena. In the grasslands of Andalusia, a calf, Fandango, is raised to become a bullfighting bull. Matteo and Fandango grow up in distant and parallel worlds but one day they will have to meet and face each other, in front of thousands of people.
Starring Guillermo Bedward (Tolkien by Dome Karukoski, Rocketman by Dexter Fletcher), Ian Caffo (for the first time on screen), Silvia Degrandi (Parthenope by P. Sorrentino; La Pazza Gioia by P. Virzì) Paola Sotgiu (Suburra – The Series ; All’s Well Home – The Series) Brontis Jodorowsky (Endless Poetry by A. Jodorowsky, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald), Donovan Raham, Antonio Estrada, Juan Quiñones.
The film is produced by Jose Alba for Pecado Films (SP), Natacha Kucic for First Draft (SP), Daniele Segre and Daniele De Cicco for Redibis Film (IT), Paola Herrera for Una Comunión (MEX) with the contribution of the Ministry of Culture – Minority Co-Production Fund, Piemonte Film TV Fund (POR FESR Piemonte 2014-2020-Action III 3c.1.2), Instituto de la Cinematografía, Eurimages, Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, Gobierno de España; with the support of Film Commission Torino Piemonte – Piemonte Film TV Development Fund, Agencia Andaluza de Instituciones Culturales, Ibermedia, Creative Europe Programme – MEDIA; with the participation of Canal Sur, CREA SGR.
