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The splendid Calanchi di Palizzi, in the province of Reggio Calabria. A remote and beautiful place in Calabria, three sisters, summer, the sea, a mermaid. Shot entirely on film and in Calabria, the short film «Puca» by director Sara Scalera will be screened as an international premiere during the 83rd edition of the Venice International Film Festival (from 2 to 12 September), within the 41st International Critics’ Week (SIC), an autonomous and parallel section organized by the National Union of Italian Film Critics (SNCCI).
Also made thanks to the patronage of the Municipality of Palizzi, the second film produced by GM Production, the cinema division and independent production house of the Gruppo Matches communication agency, with the Associate Producers Limbo film, Hubris Pictures, Eidos Film and Red Couch Pictures, «Puca» thus enters the competition in Venice.
It’s the 90s, on an early summer afternoon. While their parents sleep, the sisters Lotti and Malibu (these are the nicknames they give each other) decide to secretly go out to the bar, among others frequented by a boy they both like. Puca, the youngest sister, wants to go with them at all costs, and otherwise threatens to wake up her parents with her screams. The three sisters then set off and, as they pass by the beach, Puca approaches the shore and says she saw a mermaid. Once at the bar, while the two eldest are in the grip of their adolescent moods, they lose sight of Puca. Thus begins a search that will lead Lotti and Malibu to a clarifying clash, followed by the fleeting vision of the mermaid who dives and disappears under water: with that image they become aware that their childhood is gone forever. The unexpected happens when they return home to inform their parents…
Distributed by Allegorie Film, written by the director together with the Calabrian screenwriter and director Antonio Romagnoli and shot on Kodac 16mm film, the short brings to the big screen for the first time the surprising faces of the very young Calabrian actresses Annunziata Celeste Vadicamo (Puca) and Elisa Rosaci, both from Reggio Calabria, and Ludovica Tassoni, from Palizzi, grappling with the themes of adolescence, including the desire to escape.
«When I saw Annunziata Celeste arrive at the auditions I realized that my Puca was exactly like that, much smaller than I had imagined, with a mountain of hair and a unique way of speaking. It was love at first sight» says Sara Scalera about the little girl who played little Puca.
«As a Calabrian author it is an honor to be able to see my land represented in Venice in its purest and most magical version, that of suspended time and mysterious, geographical and spiritual places – says the screenwriter Antonio Romagnoli –. It doesn’t surprise me that Sara Scalera chose Grecanic Calabria to convey her delicate and dreamy poetics.”
“Knowing that Puca is being screened at Sic is an indescribable emotion” – comments the director -. It’s a story that I’ve wanted to make for years because it’s linked to my roots and the endless summers of the ’90s. I consider myself lucky to have met wonderful and passionate people along the way in making the film who believed in it as much as I did.”
«At the center of the film, the first experiences as girls, the desire to live according to new rules, but also, through the character of little Puca, the world of childhood, with its extravagance and its need for imagination – comments Cristina Borsatti, head of GM Production –. An all-female story, set in a beautiful place suspended in time, the splendid Calanchi di Palizzi, in the province of Reggio Calabria, a new voice in the Italian cinema scene, Sara Scalera, with whom we are already imagining new projects.”
«And all this is happening in a year full of visions and fantastic surprises. We produced two short films in 2026, “Puca”, which arrives at SIC in the exceptional fifth represented by Venice, and “Quinn”, which flies to Hollywood at the prestigious HollyShorts Film Festival in Los Angeles. I am very happy and proud of these results and, of course, of the work of the young Sara Scalera, a delicate film that caresses the values of life that, as a father, I personally care a lot about. Let’s enjoy these goals, they are an important stimulus for our next productions, such as the DocuFilm on the athlete Andy Diaz and a documentary dedicated to Luciano Pavarotti, in preparation for the twentieth anniversary of his death. I am sure that it will only be the first step of an extraordinary journey”, says Andrea Cicini, CEO of Gruppo Matches / GM Production.