In the aftermath of the Nastri d’Argento Grandi Serie 2024 awards ceremony in Naples, the Campania Region Film Commission organized a meeting on animation in Naples and its surroundings. Alessandro Rak, Enzo D’Alò, Carlo Stella of Mad Entertainment and Giovanni Calvino of Tile Storytellers spoke.
The weekend in Naples for the Big Series Silver Ribbons it is always an opportunity to learn about the projects supported by Campania Region Film Commission, which, through films, TV series, commercials and other audiovisual products, promotes the regional territory. After a meeting with Maurizio De Giovanni and the Commissioner Ricciardi (in the first edition), a chat with Alessandro Gassmann And Massimiliano Gallo about The Bastards of Pizzofalcone and of Vincenzo Malinconico (in the second edition) and a meeting with the adult cast of Sea Outside (in the third edition), this year we talked about animation. President Titta Fiore and the vice president Maurizio Gemma they arranged to meet us journalists inside the splendid building Royal Yacht Club Rowing Savoy, a few steps from Castel Dell’Ovo. In one of its rooms, where the atmosphere of the ancient English clubs is relived, we realized how significant the array of talents is in a sector whose products can have a very long life and be aimed at a decidedly varied audience. In animation, he points out Maurizio Gemmacreative skills and IT, technical and professional skills intersect. Naples is at the forefront in this sense, as demonstrated by the projects presented to us in an hour or so by important representatives of the genre. We start with a series whose first season, made up of 26 episodes of 11 minutes each, was highly rated, probably because it was able to mix entertainment and educational purposes in the best possible way. Let’s talk about the pre-school series Food Wizards, visible on the Rai Kids platform and dedicated to good nutrition. It was produced by Zocotoco Of Luca Zingaretti And Luisa Ranieri. We connected with them via Zoom and Luca Zingarettiwho won the Nastro d’Argento Grandi Serie 2024 as leading actor for The kinghe said: “He knows had the intuition to make a series centered on a theme – nutrition – which is already the new emergency in our world. We were happy to produce a cartoon in a city, Naples, which for the last 30 years has been the place where the most interesting things from an artistic point of view come from.”
Food Wizards it is therefore a happy intuition of Luisa Ranieriwho announced that a second season is planned in which we will talk about celiac disease: “We will explain how to eat healthily if you have celiac disease and we will return to the reduction of sugar, because the real drama for children is sugar, because all communication conveys the concept that sugar is energy. There are many themes that can be addressed through animation. For example, I like the idea of a series for 12, 13, 14 year olds, because there isn’t much for this age group.”
Food Wizards is linked to MadEntertainmenta creative and productive factory founded in Naples in 2010 and managed by Luciano Stella, Mary Carolina Terzi, Carlo Stella And Lorenza Stella. He was there to represent her Carlo Stellawho explained that precisely Food Wizards marked the transition from feature film – the first was The art of happiness Of Alessandro Rak – to seriality. At the end of the second season, and therefore with 52 episodes, Food Wizards will challenge the international market. Star he spoke of a real animation industry, made up of passionate people and hard workers.
We named Alessandro Rakcartoonist and animator who directed, together with others, Cinderella the cat, a splendid film which, rightly so, won two David di Donatello. He also attends the meeting and announces that he is currently working on a film entitled The Little Prince of Shangri La: ‘”The film has a hand in Luciano Stella” – he says – “who has a great passion for the philosophies and religions that come from ancient Tibet. I am less sensitive to the religious aspect, but the philosophical aspect interests me a lot, because the theme of spirituality particularly touches me. Shangri La is a myth born together with the novel by James Hilton ‘Lost Horizon’. I think the idea of this ‘land of the spirit’ is very important, because in this historical moment we are witnessing a downgrade of spirituality also due to technologies, which, used in the wrong way, have destroyed social relationships. Tibet was until a certain time a temporal bubble in which the arts of mind and spirit were cultivated in a way unknown to the rest of the world. When the country was ‘unsealed’, this different idea of time produced a fascination for the soul and spirit, and in the film spirituality becomes the opposite of the total alienation to which our rhythms and technological innovations have led “.
Among the projects announced by Carlo Stellathere is a series related to Alessandro Rak of which nothing can yet be said and a feature film based on the graphic novel by Roberto Saviano “I’m still alive”. This is the film that tells the life of Saviano, who will also direct and is currently working together with Lucky Red. The hope is to have everything ready for 2026.
After Alessandro Rak And Carlo Stellait’s time to John Calvin Of Tile Storytellerswhich tells us about Lola on Board, a pre-school content in which several countries have already been interested. It was not easy to complete it, and in this sense the support of the Campania Region Film Commission and India and Indonesia, who co-produced the series. Calvin explains: “Lola on Board tells of a little girl who experiences an endless vacation on a cruise ship. The first and last episodes take place in Naples, because the cruise begins and ends in Naples. Lola on Board is an entertainment series but has an educational edge, in the sense that this little girl always tries to do something that is linked to the tradition and customs of the places where the ship arrives and stops. The problem is that on the ship there is a little monkey who is allergic to peanuts and therefore cannot eat them, and for this reason he is the victim of fits that lead him to destroy everything, so the adults, not seeing the result of the efforts of Lola, they tell her: ‘You’re too small to do these things’, but she, who is a tenacious child, replies: ‘It’s not me who’s small, it’s you who are big!’. The ship, which is called Eloiselands in 26 different places, so there are many things to learn.
Finally, he was invited to the Royal Yacht Club Rowing Savoy Enzo D’Alò, which gives us some tasty previews of his next feature film, entitled Fiammetta: “From Fiammetta John Calvin and I wrote the screenplay and the team is there Tile Digital that is ready. Now the producers will have to find a team of co-producers, in Italy and above all abroad, because animated films require a certain amount of money which cannot be found in Italy. The story is very beautiful. Fiammetta is Boccaccio’s Fiammetta, and therefore Boccaccio is told in Naples. We talk about a lot of culture and a period of Naples that is little known, so there is a lot of research to be done to represent medieval Naples, and this is very interesting and very important. Fortunately, it is a very attractive project abroad, and in fact there are already foreign producers interested, so we hope to start soon, also because it will take the usual two years to bring the film home.”
Enzo D’Alò then talk about working with Tile Storytellers and with his phenomenal and strictly Neapolitan team. He closes his speech by removing a pebble from his shoe but always with a smile on his face: “In Italy there is the prejudice that animated cinema is only for children, and when I say children, people think that they are people who are not very capable intellectually and therefore unable to understand complex messages, which is not true at all. Animation is for everyone, even for children, it is cinema in all respects and should be recognized as such in all venues. This too is a battle that needs to be fought, I’ve been fighting it for a long time and I know that we shouldn’t give up.”
After a delicious lunch in which we gulp down pizzelle, fried courgette flowers, mini supplì and baby puffs both curly and smooth, we fly to the station, where the “cinema” carriage of a super-fast train awaits us. It’s a shame that the Neapolitan adventure is over. A few more days and we will start counting the months that separate us from the fifth edition of Big Silver Ribbons Series 2025.
