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STAY BEHIND - Short Film Kickstarter Fund

An Italian spy story. Based on true events.

Stay Behind is a spy/conspiracy short film which introduces a TV series concept. 

Director Federica Schiavello brought me on board as Director of Photography and I couldn’t be more excited! During the summer we’ve been doing meetings, recce and lots of planning. We are also trying to fund the project through Kickstarter:

“ The Cold War has ended but many secrets are still unravelled in Italy. This is the premise of the film, which explores how a parallel State lays behind a lot of unsolved events that changed Italy's history. This Parallel State takes the form of a hidden figure of the time, Antonella, one of those rare women belonging to the Italian Secret Services, in particular to Operation Gladio. In the film, Antonella, played by Heléna Antonio, walks through oneiric scenarios, being the only voice of this part of history, she confesses what the Stay Behind Operation is: a secret paramilitary organisation created to protect the West from a Soviet Invasion. However, this strangely intertwines with key events of Italy’s history that don’t seem to be related to the object of the mission. In fact, throughout Antonella’s monologue, we walk through stylised and oneiric setups such as the Moro kidnapping, The Blue Moon Operation and other terroristic/mafia attacks during the Years of Lead. For this, the film is inspired to be filmed through long takes like David Fincher's and, at the same time, keeping dreamy frames like Federico Fellini's, in order to give a real yet absurd vision of what happened behind those events.”

To know more about the history background, teaser trailer, the film plot, the characters & more, follow the link to the Kickstarter page! And… don’t forget to support it! We are close to the campaign goal and only thanks to your support we can make it!


HYMN - Live-streaming at the Almeida Theater
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Not often you get the pleasure to film with amazing actors. In this occasion, we were witness of an amazing show! Adrian Lester and Danny Sapani, two big names at the Almeida Theater. The live-stream was produced by Studio North South and I enjoyed every minute of this work. It’s been challenging but rewarding on a high level. Our crew of 4 camera ops did 2 days of rehearsal before filming for the preview show, then we had 4 days of live-streaming, delivering the same quality and same shots, day after day.

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We filmed with 4 Sony FX9 rigged for studio setup, using Zeiss 70-200 lenses for the side views, Angenieux Zoom for the steadicam and a Fujinon Premista 28-100 for the centre camera. Thanks to an amazing job Matt Hargraves and colleague William Knights did ahead of the show, we had a pretty smooth week.

You can find reviews of the show here

BBC - Guardian - The Times - Telegraph - Evening Standard - iNews - Whatsonstage

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Photo credits: Marc Brenner

You can still watch it on-demand on the Almeida Website and you can have a look at the Q&A we filmed after the first show. Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we did!

BEHIND THE SCENE | XADI feat. NINA COBHAM - Manana Music Video

It’s a very challenging moment for everyone in our industry. With rules changing every week or so and COVID-19 numbers scarily going up every day, it’s difficult to find jobs and have consistency and keep up with good quality jobs.

I’m very pleased I had the chance to work on the latest music video for XADI feat. NINA COBHAM - Manana. Shot in one day, 3 different locations and a small budget, we managed to pull out a nice looking series of frames. I’m very pleased with what we got considering a big challenge with the weather and lots of last-minute changes.

More important, I’m very pleased I got the chance to work alongside nice people and we spent a nice day together, going through every scene with a nice crew attitude and good mood.

We shot with the same setup I tested a few months ago:

  • Sony FX9 (sensor on 16:9, Cinetone)

  • Atlas Orion Set B Anamorphic (cropped to 2:39:1)

  • Set of Schneider Hollywood Black magic filters

All kit has been supplied by Shootblue, they never miss a chance to be pure legends! Thank you guys!

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Big thank you to Xadi, Nina, iluvlive production, Caleb Mapoma (Director), Dominka (1st AC), Nicolas (Cam trainee), Sachin (Gaffer) and everyone else that helped on set!

Here some of the BTS shots, looking forward to publish the final edit soon! Stay tuned!


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