Sogni D’oro (or, Sweet Dreams) is a 2024 short film - written, produced and directed by Massimo Chinosi.

Official Synopsis:

In Florence, a young man's aspirations of becoming a photographer are threatened by severe self-doubt. When what starts as a dream turns into a prophecy, he must confront his deepest fears and anxieties. Throughout his day, he navigates through a web of dreams and nightmares in order to keep moving forward.

“Last spring I lived in Florence Italy for 5 months, and I made a film. 

It all started with a mantra that had been swirling around in my head- a few lines, kind of poetic, kind of random. :

Kill your passions. I know you’re in the middle of the forest, but just keep going. Into the trees. Learn the language of your great great grandparents. Stop polluting your mind. I once held the world in my hands too, just like you. 

Obviously It found its way as being the message from in the dream gladiator scene, but initially this was the first few threads I had that became Sogni D’oro.

Soon after I started crafting a story around these lines, i had this big vision of a prophecy - and what it means to be an artist. The story started coming together, I drifted away from it for a bit, until I came back to it, and knew that I wanted to shoot it before I came back to America.  So I got some friends together, Jamison, who was living in the same building as me happened to also be into cameras and was also from New England, became my Director of photography and camera man.

Giuseppe, an italian kid that Jamison met a day before on the street became our star, as well as Riya, Andreana, Valentina, Paolo became some essential pieces to the puzzle.

We shot the whole thing within a week, we’d go out and shoot in between classes, any time we had free we would go out and shoot. The budget for the film was $50, and half of the budget went towards the hat you see the faceless man wear. We didn’t have any permits, we just went out and shot, which was sometimes much to the dismay of tourists and native Florentines alike. We got cussed out on a few occasions, and got some very dirty looks. In the chase scene in the market people were very upset. Any reactions from people you see are completely real. It was really thrilling, just raw guerrilla style filming.

So that was the filming process, and as for the story:

It always was difficult for me to describe the story - it’s about a dream or rather a nightmare coming to life, but it’s actually about self doubt, but it’s also surrealism at times, and it’s actually a love letter to Florence , or actually about prophecies, you know all these things…

I feel relieved that now you have all seen it, so I can stop badly retelling what it’s about.

As I told people about the story, and i found that so many people could relate to what i was trying to do and as I kept shooting As I kept writing , it became increasingly clear that this was a story that needed to be told. It became much bigger than me. Many of us are in art school so we made our decision to pursue art, but in our life after school we will be faced with situations that challenge this. Giuseppe, the actor who plays the main character, embodies the character on a very personal level. he goes to school for accounting in florence, but also attends acting school on his days off.

So he literally lives that life… does he pursue his dream of acting for does he keep one foot in the safety net?

And the film doesn’t give you an answer. There is no right answer, it’s really just that if you have a passion in your life, a burning creative passion - you will be punished…

So I guess what the film is trying to get at.. is what do you do with that?

How do you go on?

And living in Florence, I read inferno by Dante, and the first few lines kind of gave me everything i needed, there’s a young man, lost in the middle of the forest,  and the forest is really just a metaphor for losing your path in life - and in the film I really tried to establish this idea, just feeling lost. That’s why the shot of the young man on the bridge is so important , he’s just feeling completely alone and lost, and i really tried to frame that one intentionally. Earlier I mentioned all the things that the story is about, but it’s also about whatever you take from it. Every interpretation of the film is completely valid, and I’d love to hear some of them after, but one of my professors in Florence told me good art has holes in it , so you can look in from different points and take what you will from it. And I hope Sogni D’oro has just enough holes for you guys to look into it and take something meaningful out of it.”

-Massimo Chinosi, Excerpt from the speech at the premiere of Sogni D’oro (April 20, 2024)

The Premiere

Sogni D’oro premiered on April 20th of 2024 in DMC lecture hall at Massachusetts College of Art & Design in Boston. It took a few weeks of planning and coordinating with the school to make the vision a reality. The end product was an intimate and nicely curated film screening with a solid turnout.