CM 2023

RAI Cinema

Torino Piemonte Film Commission

MIC (Italian Ministry of Culture) - Development & Preproduction Fund

Heads or tails?

Testa o croce?

CineMart 2023 - Testa o croce?

Goals at CineMart We believe that CineMart&ndash; given its prestige in the arthouse landscape &ndash; represents the perfect environment to start creating awareness around our project in the market. One of our main purposes is to find high-profile sales agents and international distributors to collaborate with from the development and funding stage.We also feel the need to explore the possibility of adding more co-producers who can bring an international contribution to both the financing and creative sides.In each case, we believe that taking part in CineMart would be a unique chance to work on any level with other professionals and colleagues to improve our project, also in the filmmaking and writing components. Synopsis In Italy they still sing of him in the cantinas, in the country stores, in the ranches where men gather at night, smoking and drinking and listening to the old songs and the tales of bygone days. The folk songs go something like this: Billi the cowboy, the bandit, the best vaquero and gunman whoever there was, the one who beat Buffalo Bill at his race at the Wild West show, Billi who planned to run away with the loot of the bet to crown his clandestine love with Rosa. But the song sings the legend, not the truth. The film is set in post unified Italy in the 1890s and tells the story of Billi and Rosa. Billi is how we imagine an Italian cowboy, funny, charismatic, a good singer and a bit of a son of a bitch. Rosa is a young girl who grew up in a convent and was forced to marry Ercole, the richest man in town.Rosa and Billi run away after she kills her overbearing and abusive husband. Her lover Billi, however, is falsely accused of the murder and ends up with a large price on his head. While for many Billi becomes a treasure to cash in, for others he becomes a symbol of a revolt that is breaking out in a small town oppressed by Rosa's husband's family.The two lovers are chased by Miller, an American tracker and a killer whose reputation goes ahead of him. But who is he really? Is he a bounty killer like he says or is he just a circus performer?While the two lovers try to find a way to escape to America to start a new life, Billi realizes that his opportunity is not running away but becoming the hero he always dreamt of being. Billi loses his head, first metaphorically and then literally, leaving Rosa alone, having to find her own way to finally taking control of her life.&nbsp;Directors' BiographyAlessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis (1986) are two Italian-American directors. Their collaboration started with the short documentary Belva Nera and the award-winning documentary Il Solengo. Their work focuses on folk tales and legends of the peasant tradition and on the incomplete and imperfect mechanism of oral tradition that ends up giving rise to new stories.Their films have been featured in numerous festivals like IFFR, G&ouml;teborg, Art of the Real in New York, Viennale, BAFICI, RIDM S&atilde;o Paulo, and won awards at Cin&eacute;ma du R&eacute;el, Doclisboa and Torino Film Festival.&nbsp;The Tale of King Crab was their first fiction feature film.

Ring Film

After killing her husband, Rosa runs away together with her sweetheart, cowboy Billi. Wrongly accused of the murder, he ends up with a price on his head and becomes a symbol of a local uprising. Everyone wants the cowboy’s head and only Rosa can put an end to this.

Alessio Rigo de Righi

Matteo Zoppis