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Enrico Casarosa recalls the magic of childhood and his Italian hometown in Pixar’s lovely summer movie Luca. By Ramin Zahed n the surface, Pixar’s 24th feature Luca is a charming, colorful valentine to the sun-drenched Italian summers of director Enrico Casarosa’s boyhood. However, the beautifully mounted feature, penned by Jesse Andrews (Every Day, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and Mike Jones (Soul) and produced by Andrea Warren (Cars 2, Lava), manages to explore universal themes such as the lasting power of true friendships and the human need for belonging. As Casarosa, who was born and raised in Genoa and studied animation at the School of Visual Arts in New York City during his 20s, explains, “This movie is about the friendships that change us … It’s a love letter to the summers of our youth — those formative years when you’re finding yourself.” Luca’s imaginative storyline centers on the friendship between two young boys, Luca (Jacob Tremblay) and the older Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) who are actually sea creatures who take on human form when they venture out of the Mediterranean. Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan provide the voices of Luca’s par-
ents, and newcomer Emma Berman voices Giulia, an unusual girl the boys meet in the Italian Riviera town near their home.
The director based the look of the film’s setting on his own hometown. “I had the luck to grow up in Genoa — a port city on the Italian
Riviera,” he says. “It’s a very specific coast because it’s really steep — the mountains rise up from the ocean. I always imagined them like little monsters coming out of the water. The Cinque Terre is really close to where I grew up. These five little towns are lovely — stuck in time, really, because they’re so small. They’ve retained that old, seasoned look — so wonder-
www.animationmagazine.net 8 june|july 21
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