CATCH A CREATIVE WAVE
When a fantasy movie strikes a chord it’s usually because it succeeds in weaving a thread of reality through the escapism and visual spectacle of it all. Luca takes a story of friendship and places it within the genre of a richly imagined fantasy tale and to begin the process of drawing these two worlds together, the team working on Luca embarked on a research process that included an exploration of Italian myths, legends and lore – from tales of dragons to the story of a bellringing octopus that saved a village from a band of pirates. “Some of these tales were actually made up by fishermen,” says the film’s director Enrico Casarosa. “They’d find a great fishing spot, and they didn’t want anyone to take it over, so they’d make up scary stories.”
To create the look of the sea monsters, artists studied medieval depictions of such creatures that appeared in the Carta Marina – a Renaissance map dating back to 1539 – as well as sea monster sculptures throughout Italy, seen on fountains and benches, and even mosaicked on the ground. “I really wanted these designs to be unique, a
