It’s the project which roused the most interest among the non-French offerings gracing Bordeaux’s Cartoon Movie (read our news), an event to which it has returned following the presentation of the film’s concept here, last year, on the eve of the pandemic: Copperbeak is a Tuscan tale which is actually very real, because it is inspired by the true story of Ottorino, a goose who was ambushed by a wolf which tore almost all of its beak off, but who managed to return to a normal life thanks to the intervention of a vet, Alberto Briganti (the medical director of a veterinary clinic in Figline Valdarno, in the province of Florence), who replaced his beak with a copper prosthesis. 

Briganti subsequently wrote a book about it, which inspired the film. But the screenplay - still in the development phase - goes beyond celebrating ‘Otto’’s courage to also tell the tale from the viewpoint of the fox and the other animals, thereby providing the protagonist with an opportunity to wonder whether he really is a superhero and to embark upon a long journey to prove his worth to himself, where he will discover his true nature and get to know his natural instinct. 

Speaking to Cinema&Video International, Jacopo Saraceni - who is producing the film with Claudio and Federico Sareceni via Ideacinema - stated: “In a Cartoon Movie ranking, we placed fourth out of the ten most successful projects of the 55 presented at the event: 8 were French, 1 was Czech and then there was ours”.

Last year, following presentation of the concept at the Bordeaux Co-Production Forum, the animation-focused outfit Movimenti Production (Giorgio Scorza and Davide Rosio) signed up to the project – which obtained development funding from the Italian Ministry for Culture’s Film and Audiovisual Department – alongside the Florence-based studio DogHead Animation, where the project will be made either “in its entirety, or at least the Italian part”, as stressed by Saraceni. “In fact, we’re also working on the development of a funding plan in Italy and of a possible co-production with foreign partners. We’re negotiating with Germany, France and The Netherlands, and there are also various groups involved in international sales who are interested: at this year’s edition of Cartoon Movie, we received 80% more feedback than in the previous year, so the fact that it was held online was an advantage for us, not least because viewings of our project weren’t limited to a single screening but are instead ongoing until the end of March”.

Directing this animated film for the big screen is Adriano Candiago, who authored the multi-award-winning short film Risorse Astratte, as well as two 3D shorts made in league with Treviso’s animated film school Big Rock, with whom he has an ongoing working relationship.

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