Barga screenwriter
Sergio Casci has been nominated for a Bafta award
for his first feature film, American Cousins
Italians have long been known for their
family connections and when Sergio Casci
created American Cousins he turned it into
a typical family affair.
From start to finish
the 39-year-old's first feature film has
the Casci name stamped and written
all over it. Not only did he create and come
up with the plot in the first place, but he even
popped
up
as an extra and roped in most of his relatives
along the way.
Sergio's
story tells the tale of an American Mafiosi family
forced to take refuge
in Glasgow
with their long-lost fish-frying relatives. At
first the Americans cousins find their Scottish
cafe-owning
counterparts to be faintly ridiculous
but by the closing credits all this has changed.
Despite the presence of top-notch names such
as Danny Nucci, of Titanic fame, and Vincent
Pastore, who played Pussy in the world-wide hit
The Sopranos, if you look hard enough there are
more Cascis on show than A-list actors.
"I'm actually in the film," explained
Sergio. "On the first day of filming were
we up at Loch Lomond and they wanted a windsurfer
so I ended up half-naked standing in the freezing
cold up to my waist as an extra.
My wife Helen Fitzgerald is in the water
beside me but she didn't have to take anything
off.
My cousin
Dante, who runs a chip shop called Dante's Inferno
on Argyle Street in Glasgow,
taught all the actors how to fry fish and chips
properly and he's down as a chipologist.
My
mother and father, Angela and Paulo Casci, have
got credits as well because we used
a lot of the equipment from the cafe they used
to run in the film as well.
They used to
own a place called Cafe Del Rio on Bridge Street
in Glasgow but sadly it's
now been demolished.
But I named the cafe
in the film after it and we reproduced the old
lettering from the
front of it in tribute to the place.
There's
also a piece of cine-film used in the movie which
has my sister as a young girl
on it, my dad, aunt and uncle and granny and
granddad.
I won't need a photo album any more
for my children because all my relatives are there
in the film. I'll just show them that.
And it is mainly from his family that Sergio
received his inspiration for the film, which
took about three years to make it to the silver
screen.
" I worked in my dad's cafe when I was
young and there is a lot of that in the film - but
the Mafia side of the film is total fantasy. Anyway,
I don't think my family has any dark suits or secrets
in its past. I do have some relations in the
States and I just hope when they see the film they
don't
end up suing over it.
But Scottish-Italians are particularly proud of their
background and try
to keep their
traditions alive. I'm actually quite a lazy person,
so the whole script-writing thing appealed to my
natural laziness
My grandfather Armando came over to Scotland
from the Italian town of Barga in 1899 and
my children still understand and speak some
Italian all these years later. My mother and
father have always kept their Italian connections
and are very proud
of the film and what it says about our Italian
roots and background."
Sergio's opening effort has also been nominated
for the Carl Foreman Award, which is given to
a British director, producer or writer for their
achievements in making their first feature film.
" I've just been completely overwhelmed
by it because it's had tremendous reviews the
critics have been really positive about it," said
Sergio. ........ story by Fred
Brenton - BBC News Online
More information about American Cousins is here
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