A scouting in Sardinia linked to a new international film project that could see the island as an ideal location: this is the one carried out in recent days by Catherine Hardwicke , famous director of Twilight and Thirteen.
«This is a perfect land for cinema , we went from Pennsylvania to New Mexico, from California to the Caribbean, and we only saw a small part of the south of the island», commented Catherine Hardwicke. «With this landscape variety, any place on earth can be reproduced in Sardinia. If there were studios to set up large indoor sets, I'm sure that international productions would increase exponentially ."
The film tells the adventures of five teenage friends who, during the summer of 1968, search for the treasure of a deceased railroad magnate. The boys, founders of a club called "The Diggers Archeology Agency", take action when a small town's mining company is shut down by the government for security reasons. And it is therefore precisely the Sardinian landscapes and mines of Sulcis that reveal themselves to be a potential ideal place for production , which among other things, while telling an American story, is also close to the experience of Sardinia.
« The group moved between the territory of Carbonia and that of Mandas, visiting various mines which presented themselves as ideal locations for approximately half of the feature film » declares Susanna Tornesello, director of the Sardinia Film Commission. «The reason why they were attracted to Sardinia concerns the fact that the mines in Pennsylvania have all been sealed or abandoned, while here they are still accessible and preserve the appearance of the sought-after era. Now all that remains is to hope that the production and the director decide to shoot a good part of the film on the island."
The work, based on the working title “Newton, Knuckles, and The Wizard of Menlo Park”, combines drama and comedy in an intelligent and refined adventure, which aims to capture spectators of all ages, in a reference to 80s films suitable to be seen by the whole family.
«Among the inspiring reasons for the Fabbrica del Cinema project - says Paolo Serra, regional director of the CSC of the Humanitarian Society - is to help attract important productions that can enhance and make people appreciate the territory, to which we add implicit repercussions in economic terms and beyond. We are very happy that Catherine Hardwicke, together with her husband, director and producer, Jamie Marshall, were impressed by the scenarios that the mining sites offer, so much so that they took them into consideration for any future productions. This was also thanks to the welcome given to them: all the people at the sites and locations visited were very kind and very collaborative towards the needs expressed by the director ."
Also present on the island for location scouting were the producers Alessandro and Francesco Tedde, together with Jamie Marshall - first assistant director and executive producer of "Twilight" itself and of "Dirty Angels", and Thomas Koveleskie, film producer and writer as well as author of the project script.
The project produced by Antropotopia is supported by the Carbonia Humanitarian Society and the Sardegna Film Commission Foundation of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia.
(Unioneonline/vl)
