“Duccio and I first met in 2002 when we both attended the London Film School. Over the next 3 years of our film education, we struck up both a friendship and a working relationship. The London Film School is a very practical institute, therefore we were constantly making films. These included works on 16mm, 35mm and video. From the beginning, Duccio and I helped each other out in our school exercises. For example, I shot a short film Duccio directed and in return Duccio was a sound recordist on a film I directed. Or we both edited each other’s films in the project that followed. This continued as the projects got more technically complex. If we wrote scripts in school, we shared it with each other in order to get feedback. This culminated in me producing Duccio’s graduation film ‘End of Season’.

After film school, we set up a film company together called ‘La Regle du Jeu Films’. Through which Duccio directed a short film called ‘Lo Zio’, which I produced.

I went on to participate in the Cannes Film Festival Cinefondation Residency with my debut feature film ‘Frontier Blues’ and as I wrote and directed this film, which was produced by Asmara Films, Duccio made his feature documentary ‘Hit the Road, Nonna’. Throughout the process of the making of both these films, we sent each other cuts of the films in progress in order to get each other’s feedback and comments.

Recently, I’ve been developing my second feature film as a director called ‘LAND’ and outside the framework of the Torino FIlm Lab, in which the film participated, and my producers on the project, the only other person who has been heavily involved has been Duccio. He has read every draft of the script and accompanied me this summer on a 2 month location scouting trip to America for the project.

Over the past 18 months, we have divided our time primarily between London, Rome and Florence in order to help each other in our respective projects.

With ‘Short Skin’, we hope to continue this 11 year working relationship and friendship which has been based on mutual trust and desire to help fulfil each other’s ambitions”.

One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.

Bisogna essere duri senza mai perdere la tenerezza.