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It’s 2016, London. It’s raining like hell, and I’m broke. All my bi-weekly earnings from my delivery job have gone into rent, bills, and an unlimited cinema card. I’m home that afternoon and I run out of toilet paper, but I just cannot afford to buy more (damned overdraft fees!). My last resource is logging into the app (Deliveroo, for us in the UK) and start roaming through Battersea, hoping for a delivery and maybe a tip. See, when customers tip on the app, you have to wait the two weeks for them to cut the check, I didn’t have that luxury. I rode for two hours that afternoon before an order came in for two pizzas to be delivered at an office on Cotton Row. When I show up - I still remember her, she was wearing a light blue K-Way to shelter from the rain – I hand her the pizzas, still steaming in the winter cold, and here it comes. A 2-pound coin, heavy and warm in my hand. That was it for me, and off I went to the nearest store. I delivered food for just shy of a year, and Midnight Ride is a natural consequence of all the stories and experiences I witnessed in those months out on the streets. I always felt a strong parallel between riders and cowboys in the west. They work alone, except from their trusted steed who carries them around. They have brief interactions with strangers, perhaps less dangerous today than it once was. So instinctively the story developed as a modern western set in the street of South London, the same I travelled through for so long. My personal experience certainly provided the rope, but the igniting spark for the creative explosion was undoubtedly meeting Nancy and Alessandro, my amazing cast. I met Nancy on the set of Anatomy of a Scandal, where she showed up as a complete unknown and stole the scene acting opposite screen legend Sienna Miller. I was lucky enough that she accepted to work with me and she’s now attached to play the lead role in my debut dramatic feature. With Alessandro it was slightly different. We met randomly (same name, same country of origin kind of thing) and became friends as I was writing the script for Midnight Ride. His behaviour, language and energy slowly pervaded my brain. Asking him to play the role was too risky, so I cheekily checked with him if he knew an Italian actor in London, knowing he would not resist to throw himself in the mix. He had never acted before, and I didn’t want him to. Saverio is Alessandro, Alessandro is Saverio. And it’s all for the better of the film. Midnight Ride is a labour of love which span a year of our life, three countries (shot in the UK, edited in Italy while I worked in the US on a film) and lots of hard work. It all started from a small gesture of compassion from a person who probably will never know how important she was that day. But perhaps she’ll see this film one day, maybe something will click, maybe not. But I certainly hope it will.
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Duration | 13 Minutes |
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