Michele Paradisi

Movies

Where Life Begins
Director of Photography
An ultra-orthodox Jewish family from Aix-les-Bains comes to a farm in southern Italy for a brief stay every year to carry out a sacred mission: harvesting citrons. Here Elio, the farm owner, meets Esther, the rabbi’s daughter, who is tired of the constraints imposed by her religion. Through this relationship, Esther will understand the importance of freedom and find her path, and, in the same way, Elio will find the peace he had lost for a long time.
Caught by a Wave
Director of Photography
A summer fling born under the Sicilian sun quickly develops into a heartbreaking love story that forces a boy and girl to grow up too quickly.
Rosa
Director of Photography
Rosa and Igor live under the same roof, without trespassing on each other's territory even thou they have been living together for years. Things that happened divided them - things that came about brought them back together.
The Champion
Director of Photography
Christian is an extremely talented as well as unpredictable football player. After his latest screw-up, the president of his team decides to assign him a personal tutor, to help him in controlling his temper. Valerio is a shy and solitary professor, the exact opposite of the champion. Sparks will fly between the two at first, but soon their relationship will change both for the better.
ḤARĀM
Cinematography
ḤARAM is an essay film portraying the urgent contemporary situation at the Haram Al Sharif/ Noble Sanctuary in the Old City of Jerusalem reflecting on the growing Temple Mount Faithful movement whose goal is to build the Jewish Third Temple on this holy landscape and in turn to assert Jewish sovereignty over this holy Muslim site.
Babylon Sisters
Cinematography
A migrant tale of sisterhood and music celebrating unconventional friendships and the power of diversity.
VIVA ÁGUA
Cinematography
VIVA ÁGUA is a meditation on the philosophical work entitled ÁGUA VIVA written by Clarice Lispector in 1973. The film reflects on Lispector’s interior experimental monologue on the “instant-now” of time, the discomforts of language which are “beyond thought” and the harmonious dissonant reminders and remainders of that “sometime what is seen is ineffable.”
Anna Pina Teresa
Cinematography
Anna, Pina, Teresa reinterprets the pivotal scene in Rossellini’s “Roma Città Aperta” where Anna Magnani, who plays the character Pina, (based on the story of Teresa Gullace,) is murdered on the streets of Rome by the Fascist police. This scene is characterized by three movements performed by Magnani — resistance, running and falling. Filmed in the Sala Scherma at Foro Italico in Rome (Mussolini’s fencing studio designed by Moretti) Anna, Pina, Teresa examines the contemporary and historical dynamics between an urban Fascist space and movements of resistance.
Chlorine
Director of Photography
Seventeen-year-old Jenny dreams of becoming a synchronized swimmer. Family events turn her life upside down and she is forced move to a remote area to look after her ill father and younger brother. It won't be long before Jenny starts pursuing her dreams again.
Ogni maledetto Natale
Director of Photography
Massimo Marinelli Lops and Giulia Colardo meet by chance in Rome and fall in love. Giulia asks Massimo to spend Christmas Eve with her family.
Tatanka
Director of Photography
Clemente Russo portrays himself in the story of a promising boxer who grew up in the Neapolitan mob heartland.
My Brother Is an Only Child
Second Assistant Camera
Accio and Manrico are two working-class brothers in 1960s Italy: older Manrico is handsome, charismatic, womanizing, and loved by all, while younger Accio is moody, hotheaded, and lives everything as if it was a war, much to his parents' chagrin. When the former is drawn into left-wing politics, Accio joins the fascists out of spite. His flimsy beliefs are put to test when he meets Manrico's like-minded girlfriend, falling in love with her.