Michele Cinque
Director
Michele Cinque, born 27 March 1984 graduated in Philosophy at “La Sapienza” University in Rome, has been working in documentary production since 2004. In these years he directed several documentaries and television series, including three episodes for the format “Identità Selvaggia” and “Alentejo Story Concert”, promoted in TV networks in Spain, Portugal and Italy. He directed the documentaries “LavoroLiquido”, about the Italian world of labour, winner of the Premio Opera IMAIE and presented in several festivals and “Top Runner”, winner of the Mention D’Honneur, the Senato della Repubblica Italiana Award in FICTS 2009 and the special award at Palermo Sport Film Festival 2010, “Bob Marley, The Reggae’s Prophet” an intimate view in the artist’s character presented at Fipatel 2012 and broadcasted on Rai2, the documentary “Mr. Jazz”, dedicated to Louis Armstrong and coproduced with Rai Storia and “X-LIFE” a series of short documentaries on extreme sports that was bought by RAI and distributed in Hong Kong and in France. His last film Sicily Jass has been presented at 2015 festival dei Popoli. He is currently working on several audiovisual projects and in the artistic direction of important digital arts festivals.
Jimmy La Rocca
Musician
James C. (Jimmy) Larocca was born in New Orleans on 27 October 1939. He grew up in New Orleans and was taught trumpet by his father Nick Larocca when he was ten years old. Later, he took trumpet lessons from George Jensen of Loyola University in New Orleans.
He is from a family of musicians on his father’s side: his grandfather Giacomo Larocca was a cornet player and his grandmother was from a musician’s family as well.
At this time Currently, he is the leader of the “Original Dixieland Jazz Band”, founded by his father Nick in 1916. He plays traditional jazz and has four CDs out.
Alberto Dentice L’Espresso
“The movie, somenthing more and different from a documentary, take us on a journey trough the world following the trace of the Band success.”
Antonio Capellupo CinemaItaliano.info
“What fills up this story of mystery is that in the hystory of music all of this seems that never happened”
Jimmy La Rocca, figlio di Nick La Rocca
“This is a man that has been forgotten and buried and is wrong. In is home town too New Orleans…”
Mimmo Cuticchio, Narratore
“An obscure shadow penetrated Nick’s soul… …The seed of resentment took root creating an incurable wound.”
Stefano Oliva, Pagina 99
“The bond between Jazz and Sicily is not just a matter of origins. The story between the larger island of the Mediterranean Sea and the America is a roundtrip ticket”
Mimmo Cuticchio
The Narrator
Mimmo Cuticchio, born in Gela in Sicily in 1948, is the most well-known puppeteer and ballad singer of our times, heir and innovator of the Sicilian tradition of the Marionnette Theatre of the Opera dei Pupi. Son of the puppeteer Giacomo, right from the age of a child he worked in the theatre of the family and went through all the habitual stages of apprenticeship.
The generational conflict was further aggravated by a growing impatience with his father’s disciplinary attitude and in 1970 Mimmo felt the urgency to follow another master, the puppeteer and ballad singer Peppino Celano, who gave him new and effective instruments with which to reach his own personal awareness and expressive maturity. At the death of this maestro, Cuticchio devoted himself to his own theatre which he opened in 1973.
In 1997 he founded the first school for puppeteers and ballad singers/storytellers in Palermo in which he directed workshops on the art of narration and on marionette theatre.
The exchange with various different expressions of the contemporary scene was fundamental for Cuticchio, as became evident from his complex and assiduous relations with the cinema (Coppola, Tornatore, Turturro, Ciprì and Maresco, Crialese), photography, radio, modern art (Mimmo Paladino), and some pop music artists (Lucio Dalla, Loreena McKennith).
Roy Paci
Trumpet player
Roy Paci was born in Augusta (Siracusa) in 1969. Trumpet-player, composer, arranger and singer, he began to play the piano when he was very young and started the trumpet at the age of ten.
From 1990 onwards he started travelling, visiting South America, the Canary Islands and Senegal, while continuing to develop his musical influences. When he returned to Italy, he carried on with this quest of exploration, at times ground-breaking, of music, affirming himself in an infinite series of collaborations and tours all over Europe and overseas.
In 2005, thanks to the music composed for the film “La Febbre” by Alessandro D’Alatri, Roy Paci won the acclaimed “Nastro D’Argento” and received a nomination for best musician for the David di Donatello.
Currently Roy Paci is involved in many musical, editing, film and television projects.
