Ma 間
Short film · Production design and creative direction
Two gods who live at opposite doors, and a man of stone between them.
In Italian, ma is the word that sets one thing against another. In Japanese, 間 is the interval between them, the space that lets both exist.
Ma is a story of the white and the black: light and darkness, life and death, creation and destruction. Luce and Buio are two gods who live behind opposite doors and have never looked each other in the face. Between them stands OM, a man drawn out of a block of stone, who carries a letter from one door to the other.
Each of them lacks what another has. Luce hears but cannot speak, Buio speaks but cannot hear, and OM hears and speaks but cannot see. Only when the two gods leave their doors and face each other, after millennia, does OM see, Buio hear and Luce speak.
The character 間 is a gate with the sun inside it: light passing through an opening. The film lives in that opening, between the two doors, where opposites need each other to exist.
Ma was directed by Federico E. Cornacchia. I designed its sets and led its creative direction.
Luce
The god of light, a shaper of stone. He draws OM out of a block of rock and teaches him to listen, through the symphony of his stones. He hears, but he cannot speak.
OM
A man born from the stone, who wakes to the sound of Luce's stones. He carries a letter from one door to the other without being able to read it. He hears and speaks, but he cannot see.
Buio
The god of darkness, at the opposite door, closed in on himself and his monologues. When Luce sends OM away, Buio takes him in and teaches him to speak. He speaks, but he cannot hear.
Credits
- Directed by
- Federico E. Cornacchia
- Director of photography
- Michele Masiello
- Assistant director
- Ottavia Farchi
- Production design and creative direction
- Pasquale Castellano
- Costumes designed and made by
- Pasqua Eleonora Moramarco
- Sound recording
- Sabino Schingaro
Cast
- Buio
- Donato Laborante
- Luce
- Vito Maiullari
- OM
- Cristian Masi