Anna Elena Pepe + Marco Gambino’s TOTÒ E DAIANA (Calcio, caffè e Fish & Chips) Among The Finalists At The Digital Media Fest

Winner of Best Comedy Story (Web Series category)

Winner of RID Radio Promotion Award

Winner of Toronto Web Fest Award

Winner of Rio Web Fest Award

The British-Italian sketch comedy “Totò e Daiana (Calcio, Caffè e Fish & Chips)” has been officially selected among the finalists of the Digital Media Fest 2021. The Web Series is created, written and directed by Anna Elena Pepe and Marco Gambino.

The Digital Media Fest is the first official Italian Festival exclusively dedicated to web series. It will take place in Rome from the 10th to the 12th of December.

The web serie Totò e Daiana, enriched with new episodes shot during the pandemic, is among the finalists in the Best Web Series category.

The project explores the lives of two Italians in London during the uncertainties that Brexit brought. They probably wouldn’t have created a bond of friendship if they were not in a foreign country and in a state of solitude. Football fans or not, expats or not, Totò and Daiana represent every person who is looking for their place in the world. A place that turns out to be very different from what they imagined.

The pandemic and the few means available have not stopped Marco Gambino and Anna Elena who in recent months have managed to produce the sequel to their series in which London is the protagonist. A walk from the lower districts where Daiana lives to the residential ones of Totò through hilarious stories that involve our characters in their respective homes.

Marco and Anna Elena (Totò and Daiana respectively) like to define the new episodes "guerrilla project”. Whilst the pilot’s direction was directed by Riccardo Sai this time Marco and Anna Elena are directing the episodes themselves adding to their team the very young talent of Filippo Michele Guarna, who in addition to photography took care of sounds and editing. Thanks to the generous participation of the actor Alessandro Marchese and Scottish photographer Adam Butler, they were able to create an agile and spontaneous product. The web serie is produced by Tabit Films.

"It had always been my dream," says Marco Gambino. "To be able to ride with little or nothing. In a certain sense, the pandemic has come our way by limiting us to the use of people and means.”

"As long as there are good stories to tell!" Anna Elena adds.

Authors: Anna Elena Pepe, Marco Gambino

Language: Italian

Actors: Marco Gambino, Anna Elena Pepe, Alessandro Marchese, Adam Butler

Directed By: Anna Elena Pepe, Maro Gambino e Riccardo Sai (pilot)

Screenplay By: Anna Elena Pepe, Marco Gambino, Francesco Bozzi (pilot)

Production Company: Tabit Film

Sound By: Filippo Michele Guarna / Emanuele Costantini (pilot)

Photography By: Filippo Michele Guarna / Luca Rocchini (pilot)

Grafic By: Luca Corgnali

Editing By: Filippo Michele Guarna / Paola D’Andrea (pilot)

Follow Totò e Daiana on Facebook, Instagram and IMDb.

Synopsis

Totò (interpreted by Marco Gambino) is a renowned chef from Palermo who has worked in London for more than 30 years. Daiana (Anna Elena Pepe) is a hairdresser from Ferrara who has just moved to England.

One day, their very different lives meet by chance in a Sicilian restaurant in London, when Daiana suddenly storms in. She urgently needs to find a television to watch the match of her city's team, SPAL, back in Serie A (the premier league) after 50 years.

It is the beginning of a strange friendship between two very different characters. They are different in age, social status and provenance, but united by the common fate of being Italians abroad... and united by Brexit.

Totò will involuntarily turn into Daiana’s "Pygmalion" and will introduce her to the new city and life. At the same time, thanks to Daiana, Totò will start seeing the world with a new light and will regain some of the enthusiasm he had lost after so many years of immigrant life.

The series develops through the stories of the many Italians abroad (the search for a job, a place to live and the fascinating relationship with a city like London and its inhabitants).

MARCO GAMBINO
Actor/Author/Director
Marco Gambino is an Italian actor who’s been working extensively in the UK and abroad. His career spans from theatre to television and films.

Marco has appeared in some of the most popular Italian and British television series including Young Montalbano, Emmerdale, The Boss of the Bosses, Squadra Antimafia, Romolo and Giuli.

Films include the International, il Traditore.

Marco is also known for a number of monologues which he interprets in more than one language: Words of Honour, Othello’s Guilt, Maria Callas the Black Pearl.

ANNA ELENA PEPE
Actress/Author/Director
Anna Elena Pepe is a bilingual Italian-English actress and writer who completed the prestigious program “European Act” organised by the Royal Academy in London and the Institute of Performing Arts in Paris. She has worked all over Europe with award winning filmmakers as Pupi Avati in “Un Viaggio di Cento Anni” (Rai1), Daniel Percival (In “Leonardo”, RAI1 -Amazon) and Johan Nijenhuis (“The Tuscan Wedding”). Current projects include the feature film “Il Ballo delle Meduse (Dancing Jellfish)” by director Aurelio Laino, the TV series ‘Interplay’ by Flaminia Graziadei and the campaign for clothing brand “Desigual” directed by Juan Costa.

As a writer, Anna Elena is in development with several projects both in Italy and the UK.

She also just wrapped on her directorial debut.

FRANCESCO BOZZI
Author
Francesco “Ciccio” Bozzi is a renewed TV and radio Author, working since more than 20 years mostly for Italian presenter Rosario Fiorello, whom he wrote with endless TV, theatre, radio shows (as Il Rosario della Sera, Viva Radiodue) and several commercials.

FILIPPO GUARNA
DoP / Sound / Editor
Filippo Guarna was born in 1998 in London. He completed his film studies with _Misophonia_, his graduation short film, currently in festival distribution.