Italy did not win the OscarBut an Italian, yes. Massimiliano Narciso, born in Milan in 1975, is the character designer for the film "War is Over," inspired by the song "Happy Xmas" by John and Yoko, which took home the award for best animated short film.
Narciso remained in the audience as his colleagues from this 11-minute production approached to accept the award: Brad Brooker, producer, Dave Mullins, director and co-writer along with Sean Lennon, son of John and Yoko Ono, who from the stage sent best wishes to the 91-year-old mother.
“There weren’t many others working on this short. In addition to them, there was me, who designed the characters, and production designer Zac Retz”, he tells ANSA, before getting into the car that takes the team to celebrate.
“The best celebration will be sleeping tonight, long and peaceful, after reading the messages of love that come to me from Italy. I studied there, there are people who saw me grow up”, continued the Oscar-winning Italian, who works at Netflix as a character director and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son Giacomo.
According to him, “for those who are new to this work, I want to say that Hollywood brought me here tonight, but I came trained from Italy. You have to go out to work well,” he noted.
Mullins and Lennon called him two years ago. “They asked me: do you like challenges? We started working, but then the war in Ukraine broke out and I had to do everything again: I had to give humanity to the characters without giving them a physiognomy that denoted a particular nationality or origin. Our message of peace had to be universal,” said the Italian, adding that it is like the one that launched the song written by John and Yoko in 1971.HANDLE)
