Distinguished Italian producer Luca Bernabei who runs Fremantle‘s thriving Lux Vide banner, is preparing for one in every of his most formidable tasks up to now: “Floating Lives,” a six-part worldwide drama collection revolving across the 2012 Costa Concordia shipwreck.
The collection, which has a whopping roughly €40 million ($43 million) finances, will chart the epic, but untold, rescue mission executed on the Costa Concordia cruise ship by eight firefighters from the coast guard in Italy’s seaside metropolis of Grosseto.
Bernabei has secured the life rights to those eight rescuers who boarded the ship the evening of Jan. 13, 2012, after it crashed into the rocks, off the Island of Giglio in Tuscany. The crash induced 32 deaths in one of many largest maritime disasters in Italian historical past. After they arrived on website, it was pitch darkish they usually prowled the submerged corridors and greater than 1,000 cabins of the sinking ship to avoid wasting the 30 passengers who had been nonetheless unaccounted for after greater than 4,200 crew and company poured off the itemizing ship.
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Bernabei advised Selection in an interview that he got here throughout one in every of these firefighters throughout a ship journey in Tuscany and was impressed to inform his story together with others who risked their lives on the Costa Concordia.
The prolific producer has already assembled key creatives to work on “Floating Lives,” together with screenwriters Mario Ruggeri (“Blanca,” “Devils”), Giampiero Rigosi (“The Purple Door”), and Carlo Lucarelli (“The Purple Door,” “L’isola dell’angelo caduto”). The trio can be behind Lux Vide‘s Emmy award-winning “The Bible” collection which was distributed in 140 nations.
Fairly than being conventional catastrophe fare, Bernabei mentioned “‘Floating Lives’ shall be extra of a character-driven collection that may revolve round the actual and intimate tales of eight passengers and 5 firefighters.”
The producer defined that every episode will observe a firefighter and one of many passengers they saved, shifting between previous and current — contrasting the lives of the rescuer and the visitor earlier than the tragedy, probably displaying their respective household life and dream trip within the run as much as the crash and the following struggle for survival. That manner, Bernabei mentioned, we “can join with these characters on a deeper stage and perceive what they stood to lose.”
“It’s a narrative about heroism as a result of these eight firefighters had not obtained official directions, they usually determined to embark on this mission with their very own gear after they began getting direct calls from individuals who had been saying that they had been trapped within the sinking ship and that nobody was serving to them.”
“I spoke personally with these firefighters as a result of I purchased their life rights and what struck me was the psychological dilemma that they confronted after they determined to go on the ship. “They mentioned in a state of affairs like this, you’ve got 10 seconds to assume, ‘am I doing the suitable factor?’ ‘What is going to occur to my household, my children, my companion if I die?’ Finally it’s a life for a life,” Bernabei mentioned.
“Floating Lives” can even profit from Lux Vide’s state-of-the-art studios situated within the outskirts of Rome which had been simply used for one more excessive profile collection, “Sandokan.” The venue boasts a 360-degree OLED Wall in 24K decision, working 15-feet excessive and 230-feet lengthy. For the formidable restricted collection, Bernabei mentioned Lux Vide shall be constructing on this tech and trialling a brand new modern 3D know-how.
Information of “Floating Lives” comes on the heels of a busy London Screenings marketplace for Lux Vide the place Fremantle offered “Sandokan,” a contemporary tackle the traditional pirate story tailored from Italian writer Emilio Salgari’s iconic e book collection, alongside their high-end present “Costiera” set on the Amalfi Coast.
FOTO ENZO RUSSO
