Filmography

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THE WINGS

(Hristo Shopov as Chernoshenkii)

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ORIGINAL TITLE: Le ali (TV).

Image YEAR: 2008.

DIRECTED BY: Andrea Porporati.

MAIN CAST: Ciro Esposito, Raffaella Rea, Tosca D'Aquino, Hristo Shopov, Remo Girone, Nino D'Agata, Sergio Friscia, Helene Nardini, Samuele Sbrighi and Michelangelo Tommaso.

PRODUCED BY: Gabriella Bontempo, Massimo Matino and Gianfranco Pierantoni.

WRITTEN BY: Fabio Di Ranno, Valeria Giasi and Andrea Porporati.

ORIGINAL MUSIC BY: Ezio Bosso.

RUNTIME: 93 minutes.

COUNTRY: Italy.

GENRE: Drama | Biography.

SYNOPSIS:

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He was promised a brilliant future but a dramatic event changed his life forever.

The Wings is based on the true story of Gianfranco Paglia, an Italian parachutist of the Italian peace forces in Somalia, who miraculously escapes from a deadly guerrilla ambush, but he ends upparalysed.

In 1992 Lieutenant Gianfranco Paglia is about to leave Naples and his girlfriend Giovanna to join a peace mission in Somalia. Once there, near Mogadishu, he joins the force trying to take control of the territory and give aid to the local population.

On 2nd July, they fall into an ambush and are fiercely attacked with stones and AK-47 gunshots. But as he’s about to get out of the firing line, he’s hit by sniper bullets. That day three people were killed and twenty three wounded, with Paglia amongst them.

As soon as they get the news in Italy, his best friend Antonio and his girlfriend leave to Somalia. When they land, they realize the situation is much worse than they’d imagined: Gianfranco will be paralysed for the rest of his life.

Unable to move even his little finger, from this moment on Lieutenant Paglia must learn to live without using his body and try to not let his injury ruin his life.

After his stay in a Swiss hospital where doctors have little hope of a recovery, Gianfranco won’t give up and decides to go to Moscow to join a specific centre for quadriplegics, managed by Chernoshenkii (Hristo Shopov), a former acrobat who has developed a unique method designed to help recover movement in the arms.

Gianfranco fights a long battle, day by day, silently, courageously, patiently, helped and encouraged by Chernoshenkii, who gives him the key to his cure: "to fly there is no need for legs, only wings". Those words help heal not only his body, but his heart, encouraging a long and hard rehabilitation.

The film is dedicated to the victims of 2nd July 1993.


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