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.

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.

Salvatore Bonafede
Pianist

Salvatore Bonafede, a pianist and composer, was born in Palermo in 1962. He started studying the piano at the age of eight and in 1989 took his diploma in music at the Berklee College of Music di Boston. When he moved to the United States in 1986, he started working regularly with Jerry Bergonzi with whom he went on two tours in Australia, besides participating in a seminar on jazz at Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.). In this period Bonafede also played in the Brandeis University Orchestra, playing on the university circuit of New England.

When he came back to Italy Bonafede went on a long European tour in 1997 and toured Italy in 2003 alongside Joe Lovano, as well as participating in the show  “Symphony of the two worlds” by the director Jérôme Savary, and in the national radio broadcasts entitled “Inventions for two voices”, “Jazz Club” and “The Concerts of the Quirinal Palace”.  He has collaborated as a composer for the theatre with directors Daniele Ciprì and Franco Maresco  (Biennale of Venice, 2002) and for the cinema (Gran Premio Città di Lagonegro for the best soundtrack  – 2003, candidature for Best Music at the Nastri d’Argento 2004, B.A. Film Festival Prize for best Soundtrack – 2004).

He also teaches at the Conservatory of Palermo and has composed approximately 400 pieces of which 100 have been recorded, as well as publishing about 70 recordings of which 15 in his own name.

Piero Lassandro
Video Editor

Piero Lassandro was born in Florence in 1973. He studied cinema at the University of Florence and graduated in editing at the Scuola Nazionale di Cinema (ex Centro Sperimentale). He lives and works in Rome.

Martina Cocco
Photography Director

Martina Cocco, a director of photography based in Rome, was born in Stockholm and grew up in Italy. She attended the course of photography at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia of Rome and has worked as cinematographer in several films and documentaries, including Harry’s Bar by Carlotta Cerquetti, Lorenza Mazzetti by Steve Della Casa and Francesco Frisari, Fuoristrada by Elisa Amoruso, Antonello Neri by Federico Neri.