Winner of the Golden Bear for Best Screenplay at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival, Italian director Claudio Giovannesi's Piranhas tells of a band of teenage boys growing up in Rione Sanità, Naples, who slowly drift into the city's criminal underworld. Led by a cast of superb young actors, the film delves into the harsh realities the boys face as the allure of fast wealth, position and power lead them deeper into the illegal undercurrents of society. Convinced that crime will buy them the life they dream of, their gradual loss of innocence is a silent process that leaves them little room to escape another system of empty promises of freedom. During pre-production for the film, Giovannesi led a six-month casting search that auditioned nearly 4000 kids for the film's teenage roles.
Director Biography
Claudio Giovannesi was born in 1978 in Rome, Italy. A graduate of Sapienza University of Rome, Giovannesi is known for critically praised films Alì Blue Eyes (12) and Fiore (16).
Press
"It is a fiction, based on real experiences, of teenage gangsters with grownup violence, grownup paranoia and grownup guns: which is to say, the infantile mannerisms of the grownup professional criminals." - The Guardian
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