Private Project

Easy Living

A small seaside town on the border between France and Italy. Don is an American tennis teacher who dreams of being a painter. Camilla is a college student who smuggles medicines, alcohol and cigarettes across the border with the help of her teenager brother Brando.
Their lives take a turn when they meet Elvis, an illegal immigrant trying to sneak across the border to catch up with his wife in Paris.

  • Orso Miyakawa
    Director
  • Peter Miyakawa
    Director
  • Orso Miyakawa
    Writer
  • Peter Miyakawa
    Writer
  • Andrey Nuzhnyy
    Director of Photography
  • Antonio Miyakawa
    Producer
  • Francesco Melzi d'Eril
    Producer
  • Stella Savino
    Producer
  • Wise Pictures
    Producer
  • Francesco Schiavone
    Assistant Director
  • Gianluca Agazzi
    Art Director
  • Alessia Boccardo
    Costume Designer
  • Riccardo Alfano
    Sound Mixer
  • Aline Hervé
    Editor
  • Camilla Semino Favro
    Lead Actor
  • Manoel Hudec
    Lead Actor
  • Alberto Malanchino
    Lead Actor
  • James Miyakawa
    Lead Actor
  • Riccardo D'Amico
    Line Producer
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Easy Living
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Genres:
    Drama, Comedy
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 32 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    November 1, 2019
  • Country of Origin:
    Italy
  • Country of Filming:
    France, Italy
  • Language:
    English, French, Italian
  • Shooting Format:
    RED
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.78 (16X9)
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • 37th Torino Film Festival - TFF
    TORINO
    Italy
    November 27, 2019
    Italian Premiere
    Festa Mobile
  • 35th Santa Barbara International Film Festival - SBIFF
    Santa Barbara
    United States
    January 20, 2020
    US Premiere
    Crossing Borders
Distribution Information
  • I Wonder
    Distributor
    Country: Italy
  • Minerva Pictures
    Sales Agent
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Orso Miyakawa, Peter Miyakawa

Orso Miyakawa

Born in Monaco in 1992, Orso Miyakawa spent his childhood between Turin, Tokyo and Milan. After a short interlude in Paris, he moved to the United States to pursue his filmmaking studies. His short films were presented in numerous film festivals, such as the Torino Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival. He currently lives in Milan.

Peter Miyakawa

Born in Monaco in 1995, Peter grew up between Turin, Tokyo and Milan. In 2014 he moved to California to study Film-making and Psychology. In 2017, after 4 months at ICU Tokyo, he graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a double bachelor in Psychology and Film studies. Peter currently lives in Milan working as a film-maker. 

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

We grew up spending our summer holidays in Menton, next to the border between France and Italy. For years, growing up, this border didn’t really exist. With the Schengen era, the decadent metallic structure that characterized this particular border didn’t really have a purpose anymore. It was sitting there, abandoned, a few steps from the sea.
After high-school, we both moved to California for our studies, and for a few years we didn’t go to Menton anymore.

When we went back, we immediately noticed a big difference. During our absence, the terrorist attacks of Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan and the Stade de France caused France to enter in a state of emergency. The first consequence that we directly experienced, was the transformation of that same border. That structure, left deserted for years, was suddenly back in action: military trucks, French army on one side, and Italian army on the other, constant controls and documents checks, car searches.

If normally a train from Ventimiglia to Menton took 10 minutes, now taking the train would have meant systematic controls from the French police as soon as it passed the border. Ventimiglia gradually transformed into a place of tension and Wait. Thousands of migrants started being stuck there, many for long periods of time, waiting for a chance to get to France.

This type of atmosphere, where time was starting to stop, slowly became normality, and the dynamics of the two border towns of Menton and Ventimiglia (the Friday market of Ventimiglia, the town feasts in Menton, the price differences medicines, gas, alcohol and cigarettes between the two countries that characterized the flow of locals crossing the border) were adapting to the new situation.

Living first hand the changes of a place that we know so well, created in us the desire to tell a story about it. Making a movie. But then we asked ourselves, a movie that touches such urgent and dramatic issues, does it need to be exclusively a tragedy?

Something that we often noticed, in these years full of ideological conflicts, is how movies that deal with the topic of clandestine immigration are always filled with drama, pure tragedy, accusations and guilt. Without a doubt, these ways of telling such stories can become necessary to convey the pain and the troubles that these people deal with. But on the other hand, our impression was that making a movie, exploiting the guilt of the viewers, often results in highlighting the differences between the life of a refugee and that of an average movie spectator. Separating further more, the public from the subject.

Let’s make a movie about immigration. But let’s make it not only to make people cry, it needs to make them laugh as well. Let’s create the character of a migrant, but he can’t only make us feel pity. Let’s make him cool, and let’s name him Elvis Presley, with shades and Hawaiian shirts. So that a kid that watches this movie would not only feel tenderness for him, picturing him merely as a poor migrant, but could admire him, as a human being.

We then developed a story about friendship, human contrasts that find a common way.

An unsuccessful American painter: a class A immigrant.
An immigrant from Burkina Faso stuck in Ventimiglia waiting for a way to cross the border: a Class B immigrant.
An Italian college student who smuggles medicines, alcohol and cigarettes between France and Italy.
A fourteen years old kid, who happens to share an adventure with these characters.
Different lives, different stories, different ideals, that happen to find a common goal: helping a migrant to cross the border illegally.
Not for charity, but for friendship.