The Project
Gaudium is a fight for happiness
In a period of war, sickness, and sadness, happiness is a key word to describe the high potentiality for Gaudium to reach a higher number of European and international levels. Happiness has no borders. The movie can be considered a real fight for happiness. Gaudium has huge potentiality in terms of quality and creativity because it can move easily from one language to another: realistic, with a large plot in the present time and a secondary plot in several unreleased historical events connected to the coca leaf. We will find also some supernatural elements, drug cartel fights, and secret services in a stressful confrontation. The Andean people, despite a hardship environment, had taught us that living according to nature and using correctly what nature can give us, can improve the quality of our life. On the contrary, when these elements are transformed into a profit-making machine, the bad outcome can affect the life of everyone. The quality of the narrative choices and the characters’ arcs will introduce the audience to a world full of actions, passions and diversities, science and history, in a world that oscillates from tradition and modernity, in the inner attempt to build a hope for a better future of love and mutual understanding. This diversity is going to engage a very large audience because it is a story without borders.
The Coca Prophecy
For you it will be spirituality,
for them instead, idiocy.
When white people will
try to do the same and
allow themselves to use
the coca leaf like you do,
the opposite effect will happen to them.
For you, its juice will be life strength,
for your new rulers, instead, it will be a repulsive and degrading vice.
While for indigenous people
it will be healthy spiritual nourishment,
to them, it will cause idiocy and dementia.
… I die now, and anybody,
who reveals this secret will die too.
Synopsis
Logline: The scientist Frank Bartoli, while researching to cure his son’s autism, discovers a highly beneficial enzyme from the coca leaf. Cocaine dealers, big pharma, and global powers rush to get the GAUDIUM formula to defend their lucrative businesses.
Francesco Bartoli aka Frank, a renowned biochemist, is researching the coca leaf, a natural resource indigenous to Andean countries, where it has been cultivated and used for thousands of years. Frank is married to another scientist Linda. Linda is an expert on Andean traditions from a historical point of view. From Linda’s mouth will start the narrative about the millenarian history of the coca leaf. The couple has a young boy, Pablo, who is suffering from a secondary form of autism. While researching a cure for his beloved son, Frank discovers a new special enzyme GAUDIUM (from Latin: happiness), and starts to observe his son’s healing. At the same time, Frank discovers that GAUDIUM could decrease pathologies and mental health syndromes, like depression, and make people happy. Frank’s research generates enormous economic interest in the licit world of big pharma multinational corporations and of coca derivates as well as in the underworld of narcotraffickers.
Historical Notes
For over a thousand years, South American indigenous peoples have chewed the leaves of Erythroxylon coca, a plant that contains vital nutrients and numerous alkaloids, including cocaine. The remains of coca leaves have been found alongside ancient Peruvian mummies. There is evidence that these cultures also used a mixture of coca leaves and saliva as an anesthetic for the performance of trepanation.
When the Spanish arrived in South America, they legalized and taxed the leaf. Nicolás Monardes described the indigenous peoples’ practice of chewing a mixture of tobacco and coca leaves to induce “great contentment.”
Although coca’s stimulant and hunger-suppressant properties had been known for many centuries, the isolation of the cocaine alkaloid was not achieved until 1855. The cocaine alkaloid was first isolated by the German chemist Friedrich Gaedcke in 1855. Thanks to the extensive study by Domenico Lorini, the pharmacist of Garibaldi later invented the coca- elixir Lorini, the father of Coca-Cola.
From this period, from an innocent leaf able to support the life of the Audenian population will grow up to be one of the biggest businesses in the modern world: cocaine and coca-cola.
Director Notes
Gaudium is a fascinating subject, and due to the presence of extensive scientific facts and historical background, it fixes the story in a natural feeling of truth. The fictional part opens new scenarios to investigate problems that affect us all. My creations always prioritize content! At present, the form seems more privileged among most writers and directors.
To emphasize this path, our way to shoot may protect the will of truth, insisting on long takes often by hand, trying to preserve and enhance the actor’s performances.
The actors’ understanding of their work is crucial: Weeks of preparation will be mandatory before starting the production.
Casting & Celebrities
The casting of the film will be very accurate and scrupulous and will take into account two very important topics: a. The presence of a Hollywood A Level actor (like Ryan Gosling, Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, etc.) is necessary and indispensable to make the film already pre-sold before shooting it. b. The actors who will play the other characters will be selected first from the previous cast of “Useful Idiots”, the cast will then be complemented by local and international actors residing in Thailand or other Asian cities.
SANDRO CALVANI BIO
As a United Nations diplomat on four continents for 23 years, Calvani has been Chief of Mission in various conflicts, and social and civil wars. He has visited and worked in 135 countries and collected amazing stories of human resilience and regeneration in 28 books he has published, which won international recognition and literary awards. Most recently he became a faculty member invited in Asian, European, and Latin American universities to illustrate the insights of human struggles, successes, and failures to cancel pain overcome violence, and find happiness. As a witness of some of the longest conflicts on Earth, in Ethiopia, Colombia, the Golden Triangle, Congo, and Central America, Calvani painstakingly researched the historical missing links of human fights. Building on his scientific background as a biologist, in thirty years he collected more than 200 old and modern books as well as unobtainable essays and secret reports on coca leaf. He now owns the largest archive on Earth on coca studies. As a main co-writer of Gaudium, Calvani reveals some of the most unspeakable secrets and real stories of the world’s unholy oligarchs in the global market of unhappiness. Gaudium is the antidote to cure modern humanity poli-crisis.
MAURIZIO MISTRETTA BIO
Maurizio Mistretta is the founder and Managing Director of the Bangkok International Artists Guild. Born in Florence (Italy), Maurizio Mistretta has been writing, directing, and acting in films and theatre plays for the last 25 years. After his acting studies with several important masters in Italy, he started a long-term activity inside Pisa’s prison as Art Director of a company of inmates-actors (1993-2001), and projects inside public and private schools in Italy and Thailand (1990-2008). In 2001, in collaboration with the RAI, he produced a documentary about his theatre in prison: “Pisa’s Towers” RAI 3 (National Channel). From 2000 to 2006 he organized workshops in several Thai Correctional Houses in Bangkok in collaboration with UNICEF-Bangkok and produced a video document “Pinocchio in Siam” (Melampo Documentary, La7 TV, 2007). His theatre activity includes plays inspired by Dostoevsky. Aristophanes, Dante Alighieri, Shakespeare, Beckett, Lorenzini, Kafka, Hrabal, Pinter, Pirandello, Pasolini and many others. Recently, he produced theatre and film events in collaboration with the Italian Embassy, the Czech Embassy, Alliance Francaise, and the German Embassy. His filmography in Thailand started in 2016 with the production of several short movies (SS31, The Two Brothers, Soi Tanakan, Fragment of Gaudium), two feature films (The Red Iron Door and Useful Idiots), and one documentary (Boxer Rebellion).
Maurizio Mistretta IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6557429/
MICHELANGELO CICERO BIO
Michelangelo Cicero, a versatile artist from Italy, has cultivated his musical prowess through evening courses at the Milan Conservatory, studying under renowned Jazz singer Laura Fedele. His repertoire spans diverse genres, from rock and pop bands to theatrical productions. A standout moment in his career was his compelling portrayal of Judas in the renowned musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Michelangelo has extended his artistic footprint beyond the stage, participating as an actor and contestant on various TV programs. Beyond Italy, he has continued to contribute to the worlds of theatre and music in Thailand. His journey showcases his diverse talents and dedication to artistic exploration and expression.
Production Notes
Thailand is the stage for more than 1,000 films every year. This high number of productions is due to the presence of an incredible number of unique locations; from the north (Jungles and mountains) to the south (dreamy beaches), and at the center is a vast ultra-modern metropolis (Bangkok).
After several years of intense activities, Thailand (especially Bangkok) got many experts in every field of the movie business able to reach high-quality standards.
In addition, shooting in Thailand is convenient compared to the US and Europe. Therefore, it is excellent for investors looking for quality productions with high standards and a low budget.
Contact Us
Bangkok International Artists Guild (B.I.A.G) Co., Ltd.
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