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Date:
December 15, 2022

CO-PRODUCTION FORUM

Amerika

Amerika

by Davide Maldi
Ring Film | Italy

Feature Film

Logline

In a world where family debts fall upon the children, twins Ada and Livio are torn apart to opposing destinies. Ada flees in search of freedom, leaving Livio to bear their family’s burden. Eventually, they must confront the outcomes of their choices.

Synopsis

In a State that forces its citizens to repay their failures through labor, a grim law permits parents to transfer debts to their children.
Ada and Livio, inseparable twins, are branded as “Esposti” and condemned to repay a very high debt. Livio, trapped by fear and responsibility, bends to the fate of forced labor.
Ada, on the other hand, decides to escape and joins a group of fugitives like herself. Driven by the desire to find her brother and reach the legendary “Amerika” together, Ada is willing to anything, even sacrifice her new companions. But when the twins finally reunite, their meeting shatters her hope, and Ada will be forced again to choose between Livio and herself.

Director’s Profile

After graduating from the Roman School of Comics, Davide Maldi began working as an illustrator, storyboard artist and assistant director for cinema. He studied Performing Arts and Sciences at La Sapienza and Cinema and New Media at RUFA. In 2007 he won a study and training residency at the New York Film Academy. He then worked as a director, filmmaker and DOP for cinema, making documentaries of social research and investigation. He founded L’Altauro, a production house for development of works of art and auteur’s documentary. In 2011 he directed Sul Fiume, an anthropological journey made aboard a small boat along the Tiber River, from its source to its mouth. In 2014 he made Uproar (Frastuono), the first chapter of a trilogy on adolescence. The film is presented in international competition at the 32nd Torino Film Festival and wins the 2015 Corso Salani Award at the Trieste Film Festival. His latest work, part two of the trilogy, The Young Observant (L’Apprendistato) (2019) was competed at the 72nd Locarno Film Festival, in several international festivals including DocFortnight at MoMA. The film won the jury prize at the 37th Torino Film Festival. With his cinema, halfway between reality and fiction, he searches new forms of rites of passage in the contemporary world, namely the changes in the position that an individual occupies in society. He has repeatedly investigated the condition of the adolescent with respect to his dutiful and sometimes cruel transition to adult life.

Company Profile

Ring Film is an Italian independent production company based in Rome. Ring Film is internationally oriented yet deeply rooted in our country’s culture. The production choices of Ring Film are geared towards films that are linguistically evolved and have a contemporary vision. Its goal for the coming years is to develop international art house and elevated genre films, along with edgy and contemporary TV shows.