Simone Marino / Italy / 8’ / 2024

In the Venetian lagoon, in order to mount on boats and boats, one must first move a few steps on a floating platform that is called a “imbarcadero.” In Chioggia, near Venice, among the many docking points, lives a pier similar to the others. But he has a problem. It has been abandoned and for too long no one has walked on it. Not one foot deigns to step on it and, more importantly, all boats ignore it. There would be just one that, at the time, made him wobble. Theirs has not exactly been a love affair. It was something more like chasing, dancing, recognizing and ignoring each other. It wasn’t even really falling in love. In the filthy sea of the placid lagoon, that of this jetty was a banal, overbearing “Crush.”

Direction, Screenplay, Narration Voice, Cinematography, Editing Simone Marino
Archival Research Alberto Salvagno
Music by Giordano Treglia, Francesco Saverio Orfino
Mix Simone Costamagna
Mix Del Trailer Leonardo Raspolli
Color Enrico Arrighi

Simone Marino
Simone Marino was born in Rome in 1996. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from La Sapienza University, she has her first set experience in 2019 as an intern on Paolo Sorrentino’s The New Pope, and then as Chiara Polizzi’s casting assistant forEmanuele Crialese’s L’ immensità. Thanks to his first short film Un figlio, he is admitted to the CSC – Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia’s directing class in 2020. At CSC he directs Il dilemma del porcospino in 2021. In 2022 he filmed Houseparty, which premiered at the Free Aquila Festival (where it won the audience award) and screened for two weeks in a row at the Cinema Nuovo Aquila in Rome. The following year he was chosen by CSC to direct Il caso è chiuso, andate in pace. The short film – commissioned by Cam Sugar for the release of “Piombo,” a collection of music from 1970s poliziotteschi – is being presented at the 2022 Turin Film Festival and other international festivals. In 2023 he directed the diploma short Il difetto dell’astice blu, under the mentorship of Paolo Sorrentino. The short film is screened at RIFF ’23 and other major festivals around the world. Finally, also in 2023, he was chosen by CSC and Campari to direct the branding campaign, a five-episode mini-series entitled Red Rail (presented at the Venice Film Festival 2023). After finishing the school, he worked as assistant director on the set of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer; as casting assistant to Massimo Appolloni for Giuseppe Piccioni’s Zvanì; and as personal assistant to Damien Chazelle and Olivia Hamilton during their stay in Italy in May/June 2024. In September of the same year he presented at Venice Days his latest short film, Crush, made within the Laguna Film Lab artistic residency, coordinated by Andrea Segre. In November he released his first video clip, La nausea, for singer-tiktoker Reju, and the following month he was the scriptwriter for the AS Roma commercial Never stop believing.