Synopsis
Monte Carlo. Two men and a woman are sent to the Principality to shoot a commercial. Their road trip throughout the South of France and the French Riviera turns into a task much harder than what expected since they must face incredible situations and people behind which there is something that goes beyond their control.
WAX” is an Italian debut film, a first time not only for its director, but for the producer, the director of photography, the production designer, the musician, the casting director and other collaborators as well. And even though it is a debut, the people involved in the project, after finding national and international sponsors through tax credit, didn’t give up facing challenges like shooting in four different Countries, on a scheduled flight across the Atlantic Ocean, in the middle of the desert, on a 1892 train in Provence and even on the terrace of Fairmont Hotel in Monte Carlo. These young people succeeded in being appreciated by important actors such as Rutger Hauer and Jean-Marc Barr who agreed to participate in the film, captivated by the enthusiasm of the young French and Italian actors, for the first time protagonists in this film. The film is about an adventurous journey, and was entirely shot in POV perspective, often by using smartphones on set, granting the cast freedom of expression and experimenting new forms of fruition for the audience.
This movie can be effectively considered as a “Self(ie)-Movie”, both as an independent, self-produced project and as a film based on self-portraying, which is so popular among young people these days. The film has got different narrative register, it is a real crossover of genres, from thriller to bildungsroman, adventure, romance, from social to comedy, from drama to animation. The film deals with current topics, such as the cultural confrontation between people from different European Countries affected by the financial crisis of these years, and it aims to reveal the generational struggle of searching one’s own dignity through work, which is presently occurring inside and outside Italy. Finally, the film encourages a debate on the relationship between the idea of sacrifice and that of liberation.