A Ciambra

28th STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. DAY 3, NOV 10th 2017. "A Ciambra" (2017) premiered in Sweden at the festival on Nov 8th.

‪A soundtrack and score vibrating with the power of life. An authenticity rarely seen and felt. Friendship, dreams and desperation.‬

‪The second feature by Italian-American writer-director Jonas Carpignano, "A Ciambra" (2017) is shot with amateur Romani actors, more or less portraying themselves. In 2014, he made a 16 minutes short with the same title and main character/actor, depicting one night in his life.‬

"A Ciambra" focuses on a Romani boy and his grim existence in southern Italy. He and the African immigrants have no option except to participate in the underworld. The movie stars a cast of unknown (and unglamorous) people. The handheld camerawork gives the movie a feeling of gritty realism. The events portrayed are probably a daily reality for millions worldwide, whether immigrants or just people forgotten by society at large. Indeed, the Roma - mistakenly called gypsies - have been one of the most discriminated groups in Europe for ages; the Nazis murdered at least 220,000 Roma, possibly as many as 1.5 million, labeling the Roma as criminals.

Anyway, this is a movie that everyone should see.

This film drags you into the world of Pio, the main character, from the very first shot to the last, making you descend very slowly and blissful back onto your seat, long after the lights have gone on. Unblended cinema magic! You could feel the passion and heart that was put into this throughout; the filming took more than 90 days (wich is abnormally long) but this care and eagerness to bring Pio's world to life in a pure and enthralling way is reflected upon every scene. An important reason for this was probably the characters who felt delightfully authentic, not infected by hollywoodian handsome faces but (apparently the director also used real people from the area) real human faces of wich you simply couldn't doubt there truth and were going straight into your heart. Another decisive factor in the film's relish was beyond a doubt the dynamic and beautiful camera work, capturing the streets of South-Italy and it's powerful faces in warm colours and shifting it's close focus across the action. At the same time A Ciambra shifts your own focus upon Pio's social reality, offering you an absorbing and enriching window upon this poor region in Italy in the spirit of Italian neorealism.

Dark, boring, confusing dialogs, no logical sequence of events, I felt no connection to the characters whatsoever. If you're a fan of art films and foreign movies you might like it. I could have saved the 2 hours spent watching this.

Absorbing, Gripping, dark. Over 70 years since Italian Neo-Realism began, here is as fine an example of the genre as you could find. Nonprofessional actors creating a believable reality. This is the world of the poverty struck Italian Roma seen through the eyes of chain smoking, 14 year old Pio as he tries to establish himself in the world of Roma men.