Fingertips

Destiny is like the postman: it always knocks twice

Team

synopsis

We are two brothers. I’m Mario. I am the older one, I was born in Naples in 1903. My father is a colonel in the Italian army, who has been assigned to China. European countries had garrisons over there before WW2. Fu is my younger brother. He’s half-Chinese: Mummy had an affair with a Chinese man. We were separated during childhood. I can honestly admit that I hate Fu. He destroyed my life. I’m Fu. After twenty years, Mario has become a sensational pianist and a compulsive gambler, utterly indifferent to politics. His music seems to come from the future. Everybody thinks that I am a nightclub owner in Shanghai, but it’s a cover: I am a Communist activist. I like the thought of a future, and feel that Communism is the kind of future I mean. I have rescued Mario from prison, got him to quit gambling, given him a new job: he now plays in my nightclub. Don’t think I did it out of familial affection. My interest is political. I am using him, but he hasn’t realized. Shanghai is about to be invaded by the Japanese. We still hate each other. Together, we are fighting to create a multi-cultural orchestra against apartheid. WW2 is looming. Who knows if we will learn how to love each other. Welcome to China, 1937. Childhood, family, war. A film about brotherhood and betrayal.

Director’statement

I have lived in China for several years. In 1995, on a bus in Beijing, after sunset, there was no light onboard. A teenager had given his 6-year-old brother his first Chinese dictionary. The child wanted to start to read so badly, but it was too dark. So the elder brother conjured up a torch out of his pocket, embraced the child, and started teaching him how to read. That was the first glimmer of the story: two brothers, in China. Then I realized that one of them had to be a Westerner. Because these days West and East are coming head to head. Just like two brothers: they hate each other, they need each other, they are learning to know each other. I’d like my movie audience to experience a crazy melting pot full of energy, enthusiasm, young people, from all corners of the world – Russian fiddlers, Afro-American jazz-players, Dadaist choreographers and Bauhaus designers, with a will to build a new future and a wit unknown today in the Old Continent. Shanghai in the ‘30s was just that: not a dolled-up town, but a disheveled metropolis. The story is set in the Thirties, but it feels like we are speaking about today’s brain-drain out of Europe and into Asia and the mounting unrest among European youth. Huge thanks to those who helped me build this story: Serena Brugnolo and Marianna Cappi. Discover more at www.teatraz.org/fingertips

TFL PROGRAMME:

ScriptLab 2011

Discover more details here:

PDF

TFL Catalogue 2011

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