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K

By Carlo SIGON, Simone SCAFIDI

ARDACO - as PROD

Drama - Development 2011

A film team discovers a group of people who have lost everything as a result of the global crisis and who are now living in underground spaces in Milan. Led by K, a man that no-one has ever seen, they are preparing an event that will overturn the system that buried them.

- Year of production
- 2011
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- ITALY
- Languages
- ITALIAN
- Budget
- 0.3 - 0.6 M$
- Director(s)
- Carlo SIGON, Simone SCAFIDI
- Writer(s)
- Carlo SIGON, Simone SCAFIDI
- Producer(s)
- Enzo COLUCCIO (Ardaco), Franco BOCCA GELSI (Orda D'Oro Film)
- Synopsis
- Two directors, leading a small film crew, are making a piece of television reportage on immigration in Milan, on how it has developed over the years, methods of communicating with people’s countries of origin by means of internet cafés, skype, etc…
  Totally by chance, they discover the existence of about fifteen people, all Italian but of differing ages and sex, who are living together in a concealed space in the underground premises of the Central Station.
  The group, though initially wary, accept revealing their own situation to the cameras. They are ordinary people from different sectors of society, and for all of them, their world just fell apart.
  Some lost their job after many short, fixed-term employment contacts. Others became unemployed when the factory for which they were working relocated abroad. Losing their jobs also meant losing their home, with mortgage payments that were no longer feasible.
  Some lost their life savings because they trusted their bank and invested in securities that turned out to be a disaster. And still today they are waiting for the possibility that a class action may help them recover what they have lost.
  Some woke up to find repossession orders to obtain immediate repayment of the loans that they had contracted with the bank, which had then transferred the debt to a debt collection agency.
  Their descriptions paint the picture of an Italy in which ordinary people receive no help in the defence of their property, their family and their identity. The directors realize that they have to shift the subject of their documentary towards this hidden reality, to this wild and sincere group. But the television network do not agree, and so the two of them, without a crew, decide to continue on their own.
  The directors are attracted by the way in which these people were brought together and decided to live underground. By the man who catalyzed their meeting, and reorganized them.
  By means of a sort of blog, activated by a mysterious newsletter, the man known as K selected this group of people, from many others whom, all over Italy, have suffered irremediable damage as a result of the system. He chose them, induced them to meet at covert occasions, midway between a self-knowledge group and a fight club, made of words, against the system of power.
  He has observed them, listened to them and helped them. At a distance, through the web. He has understood their latent energy, their desire for revenge and justice.
  Therefore, he has decided to give them the chance of moving from words and anger to action.
  A warning event. A signal undermining the solid foundations of the corrupt system of business and finance. This is what he is preparing them for.
  And now they are ready.
  The two directors realize that they have the chance of being the privileged witnesses of this hypothetical message, and so they decide to cater to the (un)conscious wishes of the group to be immortalized from the premises of their ‘revolution.’ The people begin to talk to them, describing the injustices that they have suffered, and K’s charisma. Possibly none of them have ever met him, but they all have an idea of his personality. They all have a gigantic admiration, adoration.
  Encouraged by what they hear about K, and themselves curious to discover more about the man, they decide to film a series of excerpts on K’s life (in which K is played by a famous actor, a friend of theirs) as if fragments of a fictional work, in order to give shape to this god of the underworld.
  They narrate K’s story in the following way. He is thought of as a successful man, about 40-45, a leading figure in an important bank where one of his jobs is to train financial promoters. By means of his style, his persuasive speech and his fascinating personality, he speaks about job ethics and morality in an area in which it would be difficult to identify anything remotely connected to these values. In this way he trains professionals capable of winning the trust of his clients, inducing them to unknowingly invest their savings in schemes which are all too often disastrous for their personal wealth, but very useful for the overall financial balance.
  But K is also a man alone. One day, something changes inside him. Perhaps it’s a crazy idea. Or a sense of justice.
  Adversely affected by the death of two of his friends and colleagues from his youth, who were incapable of achieving a career at his level and who ended up being carved up by the very same system that K fuels, he decides to transfer his training skills underground. By day, he trains unscrupulous financial promoters. By night, he develops the conscience of ordinary, honest people who have lost everything.
  K lives on these two tracks, the two sides of the business coin. Now he wants to bring them to a frontal collision.
  He wants to provide a signal, a warning. He wants to scare those who feel safe.
  In order to redirect them towards an ethical economy at the service of society at large. Or to undermine them, working in concealment.
  But who is the victim of this warning?
  And what will the consequences be for K and his group?
  Triumph?
  Disaster?
  A new beginning?