SHOESHINE
Official Selection:
Budapest Movie Awards 2024
Soho House Toronto Offline Film Festival 2023
Windsor International Film Festival Oct 2023
S.W. Jafar | Short Film | Runtime: 04’18” | Sicily, Italy, 2023
A young Sicilian shoeshiner faces a moral dilemma when threatened by his unforgiving working environment.
With two days left before our production, we had no script. Luckily we had local Sicilian actors with years of improvisation experience ready for us. With some classic Italian references like Vittorio Di Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, and the early blues music, we wrote a story about a shoe shiner and set it on public property to limit our expenses. With the unparalleled guidance of our supervising director, Lorenzo D’Amico we were able to craft the story in time to produce and shoot it without delay.
We shot in Catania, Sicily, at one of most beautiful basilicas, Basilica Santuario di Maria Santissima Annunziata al Carmine on one of Sicily’s hottest summer days.
With some crew doubling as actors, a smooth collaboration among a group of international filmmakers and only sixteen minutes of 35mm Kodak 200D film stock to record a five minute film, we managed to overcome the heat and have an incredible experience.
Starring:
Matteo Gil Catuogno Giulia Guastella Johannes Kirchlechner Doriana La Fauci Simone Rossi Lorenzo Mancini
Directed By S.W. Jafar
Written By:
S.W. Jafar Giulia Guastella Doriana La Fauci Sebastian Bonolis
Director of Photography - Sebastian Bonolis
1st Assistant Director - Martin Tesler
Music By Igor Vrabac and Ken Worth
Score Recorded, Mixed and Produced By Igor Vrabac
Re-Recording Mixer - Bret Kiloran
Foley Artist - Emily Bak
Camera Operator - Lorenzo Mancini
Location Sound Mixer and Boom Op - Valerio Scirè
2nd Assistant Director - Elisa Faccioni
3rd Assistant Director - Teodor Dokov
1st Assistant Camera - Lune Cladakis
2nd Assistant Camera - Tamara Diepold
Gaffer - Simone Rossi
Production Assistants:
Tamar Aharoni Giran Findlay Sigal Zegman
Score Recording Assistant - Yousif Hassan
Editor - S.W. Jafar
Colorist - Sebastian Bonolis
Terre Di Cinema Supervisor - Vincenzo Condorelli AIC
Terre Di Cinema Mentors:
Lorenzo d’Amico de Carvalho Aishwarya Ileana Johannes Kirchlechner BVK Kate Eccarius Nikolas Cladakis Osama Abou El Khair
Terre Di Cinema Production Supervisors:
Concetta Inglima Danilo Grasso
Special Thanks:
David Bossin-Hardy Tutto Per le Scarpe