Barber ring

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Barber ring

original title:

Barber ring

directed by:

cinematography:

production:

102 Distribution, Well Enough Film

country:

Italy

year:

2022

film run:

75'

format:

colour

release date:

10/05/2023

festivals & awards:

Barber Ring tells the life of Manuel Ernesti, former boxer of the Italian national team, successful entrepreneur, and of his incredible path of social redemption that today involves many young people from the suburbs of Rome.
Manuel Ernesti had a very difficult life. Grew up in the houses occupied inside an old police station in Ostia and then, as a teenager, in the public housing of Acilia. Manuel moves in a problematic environment where kids like him have no hope for the future and easily take refuge in street life, on the margins. He instead devotes himself to sport, becoming a boxing champion of the Italian national team with which he has his first social redemption, he begins to win titles, medals, both Italian and European championships. Having grown up, he realizes that boxing is a sport that cannot give him sufficient economic stability to be able to buy a house. So he leaves the competitive spirit and starts working as an apprentice barber. He becomes so good that little by little he gains confidence and with the savings of sporting victories, he opens his first barber shop. Everything is going so well that soon Manuel Ernesti also opens the second, then the third, then the fourth salon, becoming a successful entrepreneur. At this point, however, Manuel, who has never forgotten where he started from, decides to make his desire to fight available to all those guys who were born in reality difficult, convincing them to leave the street to attend, at the its shops, free internships to learn the trade. A real social project called Barber Ring, which teaches both the profession of the barber and the discipline of the noble art of boxing. Manuel lends a hand to all those guys who like him come from difficult realities, he follows them, helps them and supports them to ensure that they build a better future.
The director Alessio Di Cosimo, in addition to following Manuel Ernesti during his training and his work, met and interviewed some of the guys who learned the barber trade thanks to Manuel Ernesti such as: Karim an Egyptian boy, who didn’t know a word of Italian, and who today opened a shop in Ostia; Martina, an eighteen-year-old barber who uses the razor better than many men, or Beppe, who comes from Laurentino, one of the most complicated neighborhoods in Rome. All guys who were fascinated by the easy and dark side of crime and that Manuel Ernesti with his charisma, managed to lead on the right path, and to make him understand that that choice in the end does not pay.