Pio – A Ciambra

Synopsis

“One of the memorable characters lifted from reality in Jonas Carpignano’s humanistic and timely plunge into the European refugee crisis, Mediterranea, was Pio Amato, a crafty preteen operator from a Romani family on the edges of a Calabrian town called Gioia Tauro. Already the subject of an identically titled short film, this magnetic Dickensian hustler now gets a richly contextualized feature portrait in 
Pio – A Ciambra, a coming-of-age drama with a stealthy emotional charge that further enhances the writer-director’s reputation as a gifted practitioner of Italian neo-neorealism. Executive producer Martin Scorsese’s name should help the film secure distribution. Pio was 14 when the film was made, on the precipice of premature adulthood. (…) Tim Curtin’s handheld camerawork is highly effective when it moves in close on Pio, searching his face for access to everything his alert young mind is processing. Invaluable texture is provided also by Dan Romer’s score, which is bold and dynamic but used with judicious economy. (…) Carpignano is building an impressively cohesive gallery of outsider portraits.” (David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter)

Around The World in 14 Films 2017, presented by Meret Becker