Private Project

CARONTE

Caronte (Charon) is set in Sicily, an island on the southern border of Europe.
The Strait of Messina is the strip of sea that marks the fracture between this mythical place, recounted by Homer, and the rest of the European continent. Through our protagonists, Francesco, a young sailor, and Giovanni, a hermit shepherd, Charon recounts the cyclical nature of life and man’s transition from one season to another.
The incessant movement of the Strait of Messina brings together all the elements of nature and it connects two
apparently distant worlds indissolubly: the sea and the mountains.
The symbol of this syncretism is a 17th-century painting by an unknown author, representing in turn a Madonna
painting carried in triumph by two dolphins. The church where she is carried by the sea dominates the Strait from above. Caronte characters have an ancestral link with this place
and its governing elements. They are asked to pass on an ancient knowledge from one generation to another.

  • Nunzio Gringeri
    Director
  • Nunzio Gringeri
    Writer
  • Rocco Pascale
    Producer
  • Giovanni Ciulla
    Key Cast
    "Giovanni Ciulla"
  • Giovannino Ciulla
    Key Cast
    "Giovannino Ciulla"
  • Francesco Mancuso
    Key Cast
    "Francesco Mancuso"
  • Antonino Mancuso
    Key Cast
    "Antonino Mancuso"
  • Riccardo Cannella
    editor
  • Walter Cavatoi
    colorist
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    CARONTE
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 18 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    April 4, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    120,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Italy
  • Country of Filming:
    Italy
  • Language:
    Italian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Nunzio Gringeri

After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Reggio Calabria in 2007, he worked in Bologna as a fashion photographer for Red Snap. His artistic training and aptitude for video lead him to Berlin, where he realizes video performances such as: "That’s Amore" in 2011, on display at the Macro in Rome, and "Abitarsi", finalist at the Celeste Prize in New York in
2012. In the same year he made a documentary about the refugee camp in Shousha, on the border between Libya and Tunisia, entitled "Stateless, Shousha refugees camp".
In 2015 he graduated from the Centro sperimentale di cinematografia in Palermo, where he made two documentaries as director: "What do I have to do to make you love me?" , the story of the Italian-American actor Charlie Abbadessa, and "I come Isgrò", where he tells the Sicilian conceptual artist and his Technique of erasure in everyday Reality. This work was selected at the 11th Biografilm fest and received a special mention at the (COFFE) ART Festival Berlin and Paratissima Torino.
Nunzio Gringeri is also involved as D.O.P. on documentary films and short films such as: "Officium" by Giuseppe Carleo, "La compagna solitudine" by Davide Vigore, "Fiori di Fuoco"
by Riccardo Cannella and "La traiettoria ideale" by Giovanni Totaro. For Totaro also signs the DOP of "Happy winter", in Official Selection Out of Competition in Venice 74.
He made photography for two seasons of "Italia Sicilia Gela" (2018-2020), a series that won 3 awards at The Next International Film Festival in Calcutta, Sicily Web Fest in Ustica and at the International Online Web Fest in London.
In 2021 he shoots with Vittorio Moroni a docu-series, entitled "Denise", distributed by Hbo – Discovery.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Since I was a child, the Strait of Messina and its stories are part of my fantasy: processions with shepherds playing bagpipes,
fishermen who challenge the ferries, the alternation of ecstasy for the landscape and the disillusionment of an abandoned land.
This is a mythical place, overcrowded with legends... a natural Port for all the people from the East overlooking the
Tyrrhenian Sea. Here Odysseus fights against Scylla and Charybdis and knocks down the cyclops Polyphemus.
The natural elements of this place manifest themselves with all their bursting strength.
Caronte is a documentary that wants to tell the symbiotic relationship that the men who live in this place have with the 4
elements of nature (fire, earth, air, water), their cyclicality and their seasons.