After collaborating as a writer on the magnificent Diaz: Don’t Clean Up This Blood (LIFF12), Emanuele Scaringi steps into the director’s chair to offer this melancholy comedy based on the bestseller graphic novel by Zerocalcare.
Zero is twenty-seven years old and lives in the run-down Roman suburb of Rebibbia. He spends his days aimlessly criss-crossing Rome doing odd jobs and visiting his mother, but when he returns home, he enters a new realm. An armadillo awaits him; a form of his critical conscience. Throughout absurd conversations the two discuss the state of world and analyse what is to become. But with the news of the death of Camille, a schoolmate and unrequited love, Zero is forced to face a harsh reality. Combining fantasy and realism, this Venice Film Festival 2018 selection cleverly embodies a generation faced with uncertainty while also reminding us of the futility of life and that time, inexorably, escapes us.
Director
Emanuele Scaringi
Emanuele Scaringi has worked primarily as a screenwriter on projects such as Without Any Mercy (2014) and B.B. & il Cormorano (2003). He has directed several short films and documentaries that have participated in various festivals including All Human Rights (2008) and Okùnchiràn–Emergency in Cambodia (2006).