Alessandro Rak

Director, illustrator, animator. He graduated in animation at the Experimental Cinematography Center in Rome, after winning with his essays AGAIN and LOOKING DEATH WINDOW the Grand Prize of the Jury of the Festival Castelli Animati, the Cylect International Price and First Prize at the Festival of Film School in the City Mexico. From 2001 to 2011 he realized art exhibitions at the Not Gallery, he published comic books and illustrated books like Ark (Grifo editions), Bye bye Jazz (Lavieri), and A Skeleton Story (GG). He then went on to work on characters design and art direction for animation projects including the TV special IL PICCOLO SANSERENO and IL MISTERO DELL’UOVO DI VIRGILIO; he then created animated short films as VÀ, the First Prize at Video Festival Med and TESTE AL MURO selected at the Palazzo Venezia Festival; music videos and artwork for musicians such Kanzone su Londra by band 24 Grana, winner of the MEI award for best editing, La Paura by Bisca, 'O sciore and' o viento and Donna Maria by Foja. He made the initial score of Cartoons on the Bay 2014 and the 30th International Critics' Week at the Mostra Internazionale d’Arte cinematografica di Venezia. THE ART OF HAPPINESS his first animated feature film, opened as a Special Event the 28th Critics' Week of the International Art 70.Mostra Venice Film Festival and has won numerous awards in Italy and abroad.
GATTA CENERENTOLA (2017), his second feature film, was the winner of two David di Donatello for Best Producer and Best Visual Effects. The work was awarded at the 74th Venice International Film Festival and in numerous other festivals and the Silver Ribbon for "quality, innovation and productive courage". Rak also created, in 2014, the opening theme of Cartoons on the Bay; in 2015 the opening of the 30th International Critics' Week of the Venice Film Festival and in 2016 the Illustrations for LA PARANZA DEI BAMBINI by Roberto Saviano.

Director’s statement

“Science and Technology advance, between proselytes and deniers, divulging their beliefs and asking for faith and trust, but in fact climbing up obscure paths to the mass (... this is how knowledge discriminates against us!). Civilization and law are no longer something to fight for or spend oneself on, only the claim of the "Sons of the State" ... A state hen, in fact, which loses more and more credibility in front of its children and more and more power in front of the "magicians" of the free market (speculators, multinationals ...). The polar stars are falling, ideologies are extinguished, the real economy disappears, attitudes and moods on the wave of journalistic sensationalism and social fever find their place: politically correct, populism, nationalism, denial, catastrophism.
Meanwhile, the capitalist system seems to have grinded too far without having to deal with population growth, with its own sustainability. With ecological sustainability. And if on the one hand society tries to maintain a civil coexistence with increasingly strict or quirky rules, or laws of retaliation, or by building walls, on the other hand entropy and reasons for social and territorial division grow. From this apocalyptic perception (which presumptuously pretends to "paint" our current society) and from the desire to investigate it, the idea of ​​YAYA AND LENNIE - THE WALKING LIBERTY (The Advancing Freedom), which is a hymn to freedom, certainly, because freedom is the premise of any healthy choice of loving bond as well as the only way that does not lead to the obvious and the inexorable.
A hymn to walking, traveling, the landscape, which are the breath of every healthy thought. A hymn to greenery, which is life and hope. A hymn to wild thought, which reminds us in which environment our existence moves and which are the real rules that govern it. But above all a hymn to fraternal and selfless love. And carefree. And ignorant. The film stages the theme of coexistence between individuals within a post apocalyptic scenario, in which everything is called into question, thus trying to propose different and contradictory perspectives. Furthermore, the story of Yaya and Lennie owes a lot to the novel Men and Mice: a novel that presents a completely different kind of setting, but also that born in a historical context of great uncertainty and political and social disorientation, as was the Grande American Depression.
But beyond the reflections that inspired it ... YAYA AND LENNIE - THE WALKING LIBERTY IS NOTHING MORE THAN A STORY. A LITTLE BALLAD.”