Private Project

Rocco

Rocco is a Sicilian fisherman who lives with his pregnant wife. This day he discovers that another woman is also expecting his child, and after a rugged dispute with her relatives he has no choice but to flee in his boat where he meets with Giuseppe, an unsettling old man, who is out of this world. On the sway of the waves, Rocco is confronted with his own future.

  • Joaquín Olaya Mesa
    Writer
  • Joaquín Olaya Mesa
    Director
  • Salvatore Bongiorno
    Producer
  • Claudio Colomba
    Producer
  • Joaquín Olaya Mesa
    Producer
  • Giuseppe Lo Piccolo
    Key Cast
    "Rocco"
  • Benedetto Lo Monaco
    Key Cast
    "Giuseppe"
  • Yaroslav Prokhorov
    Director Of Photography
  • Steven Walker
    Sound Director
  • Esteban Lopez
    Associate Producer
  • SILVERWOLF STUDIOS
    In Collaboration With
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    11 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 1, 2020
  • Production Budget:
    15,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Italy
  • Country of Filming:
    Italy
  • Language:
    Italian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital Cinema
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Joaquín Olaya Mesa

Colombian writer/director based in Barcelona with a Master's degree in Filmmaking. He worked for +5 years as Colorist and Post Producer in several feature films, shorts, TV commercials. Currently, he's developing his professional career as a writer/director in the independent film industry.

FILMOGRAPHY

- BOSKO (2019) - Web Spot. Writer/Director. Colombia
- ROCCO (2020) - Short Film. Writer/Director/Producer. Italy
- LAURA (2020) - Short Film in Post Production. Writer/Director. Spain

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

It seems that we are always looking for stability, the moment in which the restlessness ends and what constantly worries us is resolved, but once we achieve it there is something that is lost, as if the object or the moment that was so desired vanished. And we go astray again. Here is Rocco, his promise is in front of him, a pregnant wife, the family ideal he had been looking for, the future that weaves inevitably. But the ideal at his reach, is impossible for himself. Rocco is unable to hold it, what had been his desire has disappeared once he has achieved it. Once again the inevitable question is: “what is it that I want?” as if the answer could never be reached.

Rocco is torn between being a man of land and a man of the sea. Thereby I have formally divided the short film, a dispute between the immobile and the unstable, the solid and the liquid. Rocco walks through narrow streets full of yellow houses, the sea, his desire, can be seen in the background. Vincenzo and Salvatore ambush him and change his course, confining him and taking him off the road to the blue horizon, he is now up against the wall. When he manages to flee, the camera becomes more unstable, it accompanies him in his hurry towards the sea.

The transition between the land and the sea is through Giuseppe’s whistle, there is no more music during the short film, it is a bridge between the two forces that divide Rocco. The sound of the sea is sometimes underwater, although the camera and the main character are on the surface, this is the link between what Rocco wants and what he thinks he wants, again, his internal conflict. The dark and inverted images suggest a step to the symbolic and the surreal.

The sway of the waves marks the camera movements, we lived the instability of the sea from inside the boat, where Rocco exiles. He is a fish, his life outside the sea is unbearable. The image of the unfocused sea in contrast to the image in which it is the only thing in focus is an evolution in this character’s reflection, the frames strive to show that something is missing, they try to formulate themselves as questions rather than answers.