RED SKY AT NIGHT

I was always fascinated by what the American dream truly is and why is so powerful. I actually lived my-self the American dream since I was born and raised in Italy but 15 years ago I won the green card through the lottery and I became an American citizen. In 2019 I was living in Vegas and I was doing research to film a documentary. That year was not only the year that was leading to the presidential election but was also when the city of Las Vegas decided to start a war against homeless people, targeting them with laws against them and fencing them in restricted areas. Las Vegas is not only the city that better represents what happened to the American dream, but it has also a personal connection. I was living in Vegas because my ex-girlfriend was working there in politics during the Democratic primaries and there in 2017 I survived by luck the deadliest mass shooting in American history. When I started filming many historic facts happened in front of my lenses: the pandemic took every American by surprise, social turmoil shook the entire country and all of this was leading to an unprecedented moment in the history of the US: The Capitol Hill riot.
This movie is about all of this and a little more. It is about the American dream. chose three characters, so different, but that truly embody the American archetype. Three characters that are fighting three different battles are reunited under the same sky, the sky of Las Vegas. I was looking at the sky one of the nights when the lights of the city were off because of the lockdown when I saw a storm that was approaching.
I decided to use the weather as a narrative tool. The worst the pandemic became, the worst the white supremacist protest; the worst the white supremacist protest, and the worst the weather became... until all this build-up turn into a huge monsoon that flooded the city. The same water was cathartic for some characters, like the doctor that washes his body every night in the chlorine water to purify himself from the virus, but for others like Steve, who lives in the tunnels, was the harbinger of destruction. In contraposition to these two characters, I found Mindy an ex-B movie actress turning to politics. Her character is not touched by the water, as much as she is not touched by the pandemic or social injustice.
For some the American dream and its values will turn them into a hero, others will become a villain, but some will be crushed and swiped away by the same dream.