L’ORCHESTRA DI PIAZZA VITTORIO

This film tells the story of the famous Piazza Vittorio Orchestra Band, established by Mario Tronco, Avion Travel’s keyboards player, and Agostino Ferrante. In the Rome district where Italians are an “ethnic minority” they put together street and professional musicians coming from every corner of the world. This film encompasses five years of shooting material, thirty musicians, fifteen nationalities, five cameramen, four editors, three sound-engineers, one district, one cinema to be rescued, one cultural association, one conductor and one film director. It portrays an extraordinary picture of intertwined multiethnic stories, humanity and music, representing, for many people, not only the fulfilment of a dream, but a life choice, a job, and a family.

AGOSTINO FERRENTE
Agostino Ferrente was born on 28th October in Cerignola. He is a film director, a producer and an artistic director. Before getting interested in cinema – he “survived” his experience with Ipotesi Cinema, a group created by Ermanno Olmi, and attended the DAMS (Department of Performing Arts) at the University of Bologna – he was coordinating editor for different TV and radio stations for Italian communities abroad. He worked with Silvano Agosti as assistant director and collaborated “incognito” with Nico Cirasola. His two short films “Poco più della metà di zero” (1993) and “Opinioni di un pirla” (1994) received special mentions at international film festivals. With his Pirata Manifatture Cinematografiche production company he produced and co-directed two documentaries that received numerous awards: “Intervista a mia madre” (Rai Tre – Teatri Uniti, 1999) and “Il film di Mario” (1999 – 2001). In 2001, together with ten “accomplices”, he founded the Apollo 11 Group in Rome and rescued the historic cinema and theatre Apollo from becoming a bingo hall. Through cultural events of various nature including cinema, music and writing, Apollo has since then become one of the most important centres for cultural production in Rome. Together with the Apollo 11 Group and Mario Tronco, founder and artistic director of the Avion Travel band, he created the “Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio”, an ensemble of twenty musicians coming from twenty different countries worldwide and whose second CD – a co-production of Apollo 11 and Radio Fandango – has just come out. He has recently directed  and produced, with his Pirata M.C., a documentary film about the story of the Orchestra, co-produced by Bianca Film and Lucky Red, which also distributes it. As vice president of Doc/it, the Italian Documentary Association, he is working hard to promote the documentary genre through various events, including the Stati Generali del Documentario, the Doc/it Prize at the Venice Film Festival and others dedicated to Vittorio Seta, Honorary President of the association and with whom he collaborates very closely. He has also made the docu-clips “Gli Avion Travel in seduta di registrazione” (2003) and Pino Marino’s “L’alluvione del ‘43” (2005), as well as a video clip for Ena Andi, the best hit of the Orchestra’s latest album, Sona. In collaboration with Rai Tre, Indigofilm and Cult he is making the web-documentary “Appunti sull’amore”, with Giovanni Piperno as co-director. Two years ago he became a member of the Accademia del Cinema Italiano.

2005 L’orchestra di piazza Vittorio (documusical); 1999 Intervista a mia madre (documentario, documentary), Il film di Mario (documentario, documentary); 1994 Opinioni di un pirla (corto, short); 1993 Poco più della metà di zero (corto, short).