Project Objective & Collaboration
The project is the result of a scientific and creative collaboration between the Experimental Psychology Lab and LABS (Sapienza University of Rome). It was specifically designed as an educational tool to raise awareness among high school students, facilitating prevention sessions through a language that balances scientific accuracy with emotional impact.
Creative & Technical Challenges
Blending Visual Languages: Seamlessly integrating documentary footage with graphic novel aesthetics to reconstruct the protagonist's emotional state, where the lines between normality and pathology were blurred.
Ethics & Intimacy: Extracting an authentic, raw testimony while maintaining the dignity and privacy of a person in recovery.
Representing the Invisible: Visualizing the "deforming power" of gambling—a non-substance addiction—through metaphors and cinematic atmosphere.
Solution / Approach
I acted as a bridge between scientific research and cinematic storytelling. By writing the narrative structure myself, I ensured a perfect synergy between Luca's spoken testimony and the visual metaphors. I focused on the culinary arts as a symbol of care and rebirth, contrasting the sterile, lonely silence of gambling with the vibrant, shared heat of the kitchen. The editing was "sculpted" to respect the weight of the silences, allowing the viewer to feel the psychological gravity of the story.
Highlights
Original Scripting & Authorship: Developed the narrative framework and interview structure to extract a powerful, authentic story of loss and redemption.
Cinematic Filmmaking: Directed and filmed with a focus on intimacy, using close-ups and textures to create an emotional bond with the audience.
Hybrid Post-Production: Coordinated the transition between real-life footage and graphic novel segments to represent the "broken" perception of reality caused by addiction.
