ITENFRES

We develop and produce films and series based on novels.

Projects

About

Some novels carry their images inside the words: the scenes, the episodes, sometimes an entire film. We call them novels for the screen, and they are where The Pram Production begins.

Behind it are Massimo Scognamiglio and Dario Cioni, friends for more than forty years, since they met at film school. Massimo is an artist and writer who works with images and technology; Dario has spent thirty years on international sets, from assistant director to executive producer. Together they take a story from the page to a project ready for production: adaptation, screenplay, visual materials, trailer, dossier. Around them a group of writers is also forming who, like the Italian collective Wu Ming, publish anonymously.

What sets us apart

  1. 01

    Four hundred sets, from Star Wars to Sorrentino.

    Dario, an established executive producer, has worked as assistant director with George Lucas, Wes Anderson and Tim Burton, and on the production of Hannah, Volpi Cup in Venice.

  2. 02

    An artist’s eye.

    Massimo paints, photographs, writes and works with video and artificial intelligence. Every project comes with a world you can already see, not just a logline.

  3. 03

    Action, from inside one character.

    Livestreamed robberies in east Rome, a manager left for dead, a lawyer confessing his murders, a killer of star chefs, a survivor of the Bologna bombing.

  4. 04

    Published novels, with the author in the room.

    The Journalist, Like Eden, The Clerk: stories that already have readers. Their authors work on the adaptation.

In development

Projects

Riders on the Storm

Crime · Drama · TV series · 8 × 50′

Riders on the Storm

Four Bangladeshi delivery riders and Apa, the older sister who holds them together, turn their night shifts into robberies and their robberies into livestreams. For the first time, Rome has to look them in the eye.

DevelopmentFrom the story by Massimo Scognamiglio
The Bastard

Noir · Psychological thriller · Feature film

The Bastard

A successful defence lawyer tells his life story, from the cradle to his deathbed. He has killed, nobody ever found out, and he has no intention of repenting.

DevelopmentFrom a story in Three Men, by Massimo Scognamiglio
Like Eden

Drama · Thriller · Feature film

Like Eden

Folco is seventeen and feels like a ghost in his own life. Then his aunt Mara gets out of prison and moves in: magnetic, radical, dangerous. She teaches him how to feel alive, and he will have to choose a side.

DevelopmentFrom the novel by Dario Cioni
The Journalist

Thriller · Noir · Feature film

The Journalist

The editor of Italy’s most powerful newspaper goes to Puglia to bury one of his young reporters. A brotherhood welcomes him, drugs him and buys him. It offers him everything a man could want, except the truth.

DevelopmentFrom a story in Three Men, by Massimo Scognamiglio
No Remorse

Noir · Polar · Feature film

No Remorse

Lupo Dominici, forty-four, company manager, one wife, one mistress, has never had a fight in his life. Then two killers try to murder him for no reason he can understand. Officially he is dead, and he decides not to come back.

DevelopmentFrom the novel by Dario Cioni
The Clerk

Noir · Courtroom drama · Feature film

The Clerk

Rome, 1985. A model office clerk turns himself in for the murder of his wife and two children. The bodies are never found, and day by day he remembers less of what he did.

DevelopmentFrom a story in Three Men, by Massimo Scognamiglio
Kepler’s Orphan

Science fiction · Coming of age · Feature film

Kepler’s Orphan

Tuscany, summer 1980. Four fourteen-year-olds find a black cube that has floated down from the sky on a parachute. Eight days later they are at Bologna station. Only one survives, and the cube never leaves him.

DevelopmentFrom the story by Massimo Scognamiglio
Odorama

Crime · Drama · TV series

Odorama

Every perfume in the world is bottled in Italy, and bergamot grows where the mafia rules. Four characters hunt for the ultimate essence, the scent of eternal life, behind the most elegant façade of Made in Italy.

DevelopmentCreated by Dario Cioni and Diego Manfreda
Last Supper

Thriller · Crime · TV series · 12 episodes

Last Supper

A serial killer is murdering Italy’s greatest chefs, one a month. To stop him, a detective who calls herself boring has to team up with the country’s most famous and most unbearable cook.

DevelopmentCreated by Dario Cioni

People

Massimo Scognamiglio

Massimo Scognamiglio

Founder · Author · Creative direction

A Roman artist and writer, and Dario Cioni’s friend for more than forty years, since their film school days. He paints, photographs and writes about memory, identity and transformation; his work has been shown at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, the Centro Pecci and MACRO, and in recent years he has taken his research into video and artificial intelligence. He has lived and worked between Rome, California, Paris and London.

He is the author of Riders on the Storm, Three Men and Kepler’s Orphan. At The Pram he oversees project development and visual materials.

massimoscognamiglio.com ↗

Dario Cioni

Dario Cioni

Founder · Director · Author · Producer

Born in Rome. Friends with Massimo for more than forty years, since they met at film school. He studied photography at the Roberto Rossellini institute, then worked in Los Angeles and London. As an assistant director he worked with George Lucas on Star Wars: Episode I and on more than four hundred commercials, with directors including Wes Anderson, Tony Scott, Tim Burton, Luca Guadagnino and Paolo Sorrentino.

As a producer he worked on Hannah (Volpi Cup in Venice for Charlotte Rampling) and on the series Domina; he was line producer on Citadel and Signora Volpe. As a director he made Paper Tigers and A Viking on the Croisette. He is the author of Like Eden and No Remorse.

dariocioni.net ↗

Contact

For proposals, books and co-productions, write to Massimo or Dario. Scan the card with your phone to save the contact; click the card to flip it.

Massimo Scognamiglio · .vcfDario Cioni · .vcf

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