Experiencing Interruptions?

STAKHANOV

BRIEF SYNOPSIS:
Alexey spends his life in a room building paper airplanes, eating only to the sound of a bell and never breaking the rules of his job. Deep down he plans to escape and see the outside world, until the arrival of a new colleague that puts his plan in danger.

SYNOPSIS:
ALEXEY spends his day in a room sitting at a table, building paper airplanes and eating at the sound of a bell. He has a roommate, SERGEI, but there is no relationship between the two. Sergei is a young boy, struggling to make it through the hard day of work. One day, too tired, he faints. Alexey wakes him, but it is too late: two guards, with the task to safeguard the efficiency and productivity of the room, grab the young boy and drag him out.

Alexey is now alone. His only way of escaping from his claustrophobic life is a postcard of a beautiful sunset he hides in his shoe he looks at when he is not working. It is during this time of loneliness that he decides it is time to escape and find out what is outside the room. His plan, though, encounters some complications. A new colleague, meant to replace Sergei, is brought the room. Her name is KATERINA.

He immediately tries to establish some contact with her, but she acts as if he were not in the room. One day Katerina eats too many portions of food. Sergei tries to make things right by giving her some of his, but this is a strong violation of the room's code. The guards enter, demanding some explanation. Katerina points her finger at Sergei, and he is the one getting punished. They tie his right hand to his back, to make his job even more excruciating. Sergei is now determined more than ever to run away. One night, while the factory is off and his roommate is sleeping, he gets up, tears off a piece of his postcard and slides it into the door, hoping to create a short circuit.

The next day Alexey builds fewer and fewer paper airplanes, feeling his escape plan is not working. Suddenly the lights go off for a few seconds and when they come back, the door is open, but there are no guards. Alexey grabs his postcard and walks to the door, his way to freedom. Right before he steps out, he stops. He turns around and looks at Katerina. The door starts closing. She is smiling. Alexey is struck by the sudden sign of humanity shown by her. The door closes completely. Katerina's smile is gone. She is now making paper airplanes again. Alexey, stands in front of the door, speechless.

  • Alex Scarpa
    Director
    Luce Spenta (Writer & Director) - Cittadini del Nulla (assistant director) - Una Casa sulle Nuvole (assistant director)
  • Ivan Pavlović
    Writer
    I've Been Thinking About You (Screenplay)
  • Alex Scarpa
    Writer
  • Scarpinsky
    Key Cast
  • Zaccaria Zanghellini
    Key Cast
    Monte (Amir Naderi)
  • Chiara Calliari
    Key Cast
  • Federico Frachesen
    Photography Department
  • Riccardo Biasi
    Photography Department
  • Alex Scarpa
    Producer
  • Nicoletta Agostini
    Producer
  • Giglia Nonini
    Producer
  • Alex Scarpa
    Editing
  • Matteo Scotton
    Editing
    I've Been Thinking About You (Director)
  • Ivan Caso
    Sound Post Production
    Bar Sport, Milano Palermo - il ritorno, Monamour, Fallo!, Un Medico in Famiglia
  • Alvaro Gramigna
    Sound Post Production
    The Passenger, Blow-up, Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni) - Roma, Prove d'orchestra (Federico Fellini), - Stealing Beauty (Bernardo Bertolucci) - Everybody's Fine (Giuseppe Tornatore) - The Night of the Shooting Stars, Elective Affinities (Taviani Brothers) - Ricomincio da Tre (Massimo Troisi)
  • Claudio Gramigna
    Sound Post Production
    The Night of the Shooting Stars (Taviani Brothers) - Stealing Beauty (Bernardo Bertolucci) - Un Sacco Bello (Claudio Verdone) - Casablanca, Casablanca (Francesco Nuti) - Bar Sport
  • Serena Mancarella
    Sound Post Production
    La Strada di Casa, Veleni, Amore Pensaci Tu, Un Medico in Famiglia
  • Filippo Baracco
    Sound Post Production
    Fortunata, Brutti e Cattivi, "La verità, vi spiego, sull'amore", Amore Pensaci Tu
  • Razi Mohebi
    Other Members of the Crew
    Cittadini del Nulla, Chori Foroosh (Director) - Osama (assistant director) - At Five in the Aternoon (assistant director & actor)
  • Soheila Mohebi
    Other Members of the Crew
    Cittadini del Nulla (producer)
  • Paola Marcolini
    Other Members of the Crew
  • Camilla Bernardi
    Other Members of the Crew
  • Teresa Palmieri
    Other Members of the Crew
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Stakhanov
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, Sci-Fi
  • Runtime:
    13 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    September 15, 2017
  • Country of Origin:
    Italy
  • Country of Filming:
    Italy
  • Language:
    Italian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:35:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Alex Scarpa

Alex Scarpa was born in Trento, Italy, in 1988. He grew up in small town of 1200 people, with a computer programmer degree and an office clerk job. His life changed when, during a film program he met two Afghan filmmakers, Razi and Soheila Mohebi (political refugees in Italy since 2007), a fundamental encounter that opened up his mind to a new world and that connected him to cinema.
The friendship with Razi and Sohelia has been essential to Alex for his growth and knowledge of the seventh art: the two Afghan filmmakers have in fact worked on many important projects. Razi Mohebi for example was an actor and a film assistant in At five in the Afternoon by Samira Makhmalbaf (daughter of the great director Mohsen Makhmalbaf), winner of the jury prize at the 56th Cannes Film Festival, and in Osama by Siddiq Barmak, Golden Globe winner for best foreign language film in 2004.
In 2014 one of Alex's greatest dreams came true: he shot his first short film Luce Spenta. During the same year he worked as assistant director for Razi Mohebi's movie Cittadini del Nulla (Mutti Award 2014 for best treatment on migrant cinema awarded during the 71rd Venice Film Festival). After several projects and many workshops across Italy (including workshops at "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia" in Rome), at the end of 2016 Scarpa is hired as an assistant director in the crew of the movie Una Casa Sulle Nuvole by Soheila Mohebi (Mutti Award 2016 for best story on migrant cinema, awarded during the 73rd Venice Film Festival).
In 2017, Scarpa shot his second short film, the sad fairy tale Stakhanov.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Looking at the small dynamics that gravitate around our days with a keen and curios eye, I think it is clear that the World, as we know it today, is a place that tends to separate the soul, emphasizing the fear of our neighbors and strangers, with a strong predisposition on imposing rules and dogmas from above, with the goal of keeping “the system in balance” without caring for happiness or your own goals. In summary, using a metaphor, it almost looks like we are breathing the oxygen of a “place” that is aiming to become a “non place.”

This sudden awareness and the reading of the first draft of a script written by Ivan Pavlović (screenwriter of the short movie and currently one of the participants of SeriesLab Italia 2017, a initiative by TorinoFilmLab and Film Commission Torino Piemonte) brought me to the making of this project. This kind of social problematics are very dear to me, and the chance to work on an artistic project like Stakhanov has been a chance to to analyze in a deeper way these dynamics that are more and more characterizing our time.

The title of the project is clearly inspired by the story of Aleksej Grigor'ević Stachanov, a Russian miner who in '30s was the founder of Stakhanovite movement,an ideology that, to me, during the years, has infiltrated our lifestyles and not just in the workplace, taking advantage of the alienation and constrictions on top of not having a defined political ideology (like left and right wing, communism, fascism, and so on).

To tell this story, I have decided to use a dreamlike world full of metaphors, almost as if we were watching a fable. This word is very important for me. This type of stories are usually told to us when we are children, in the phase of our lives when our minds are more prepared to listen, be fascinated, to interpret things with no malice or secret agenda. Talking to our own inner child, this short movie has the objective to give two messages that I believe are very important:

 There are no good or bad people in an absolute sense in the same social context, but only individuals that react in different ways to a more or less real fear of what they do not know.
 Independently from the place or the situation, the solution to the biggest part of human problems is in socializing and in the quality of the relationships with others.