Alessandro Valenti

Alessandro Valenti is co-founder of Scirocco Films. After a degree in Modern and Contemporary History, he continued his academic career becoming a professor of film history at the University of Salento and later at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce. He collaborated with Edoardo Winspeare writing the screenplay for the film BRAVE MEN, awarded at the Rome International Film Festival with the Silver Marcus Aurelius for the best female character. He wrote the film QUITE BLISS, directed by Edoardo Winspeare, the only Italian film selected at the Berlin Film Festival 2014. In the same year the film won the Globo d’Oro, received a nomination for a Nastri d'Argento award, it was included in the short-list of Italian films nominated for the Oscar. The film also won the most prestigious scriptwriting award in Italy: the Suso Cecchi D’Amico award. Between 2015 and 2016 Alessandro wrote THE ARK OF DISPERATA, a film by Edoardo Winspeare, produced by Saietta Film. In 2018 he wrote, for the English producer Rex Glensy, the film adaptation of The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese. Later he wrote the screenplay for THE TIME OF INDIFFERENCE, a film directed by Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli, based on the novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia. In 2019 Alessandro directed his new film BEYOND THE BORDER.

Director’s statement

“There are stories which need to be told because if you don’t they will haunt you. The story of migrant children has been with me for a long time, ever since I looked in the eyes of a child who crossed an entire continent to get here, in front of me. Since then, for me, telling this story is not important but necessary, necessary to fight against that "globalization of indifference" that strikes you and never goes away if you are not careful. If you don't train yourself to look at the world without living inside the prison of yourself. Widen your gaze. Feeling you are part of the world and for this reason you want to contribute to narrating it.
I spend a lot of time with children who come from places in the world where they are forced to work and struggle in order to survive, and you know what surprised me most? The ability to dream, to live their life as if it were a fairy tale. And that's exactly what I wanted to do. Telling a fairy tale, full of colors, pains, emotions. Realistic and poetic like children. Entering their world, following their fears, their hopes. Because children who are forced to flee are full of fears but also experience the excitement of travel, of adventure."