Multi-Award Winning Screenwriter Alice Del Corso Wows Audiences with Cinematic Stories
Today Italian writer Alice Del Corso is known across the globe as the multi-award winning screenwriter behind praised films such as “Apeiron,” “Magnolia: Hearts on Fire Vol. 1,” “Suspensum,” “Inside,” “Alba” and more.
Celebrated for her creativity and her ability to invent poignant and engaging stories from the depths of her imagination, Alice’s extraordinary work on the sci-fi film “Apeiron” earned her personal industry acclaim with the Gold Movie Award’s Annual Award for Best of the Year, the Platinum Award from the Hollywood Film Competition, the Diamond Award from the International Independent Film Awards, the Festival Award from Los Angeles Cinefest, the HIMPFF Award from the Hollywood International Moving Pictures Film Festival and others.
Rocco Fasano, who played the lead in “Apeiron” says, “Alice is the sweetest human being and a very talented writer… she has an immense inner world, which she very generously opens up to the audience. She’s proven herself capable of dealing elegantly with human emotions as well as with the design of different universes… she’s sensitive and her narrations are beautifully structured.”
Alice has also been lauded for her work as the writer behind the multi-award winning film “Magnolia: Hearts on Fire Vol. 1,” which was actually inspired by her novel of the same name. The film, which was released in 2018, earned her the Festival Award from the Crown Wood International Film Festival and the July Award from The Monthly Film Festival (TMFF).
“I’ve always had a big imagination,” recalls Alice, who grew up in the small Tuscan city of Livorno, Italy, where she began honing her skills as a writer early on. “When I was 8 I created a school newspaper with a couple of friends in my class, I was the one who had to fill the short story part every month… I’ve always been writing stories. I had a journal where I used to try my ‘writing experiments,’ as I called them, some poems, ideas, dialogues of the characters I imagined, everything that popped into my mind.”
For Alice, writing is a natural extension of her existence, and from the earliest stages of her life it just seemed as if it were something that she was meant to do. But it wasn’t until a bit later in life that she discovered the pull of the film industry and the potential her stories had to come to life on screen.
“I knew that writing was my thing because it has always been a strong need, but I only discovered my love for movies when I was a teenager. I remember being awake until late to wait for the good movies on TV… then I became a member of the video store in my neighborhood where I had a card that allowed me to rent movies whenever I wanted, and that’s when my love for film really concretized.”
Upon meeting her husband, multi-award winning director Philip Morelli, more than a decade ago, Alice dove in full force to her work as a screenwriter. Together the pair founded the production company Castle View Studios, through which they have produced most of their internationally acclaimed films to date.
What makes Alice such a uniquely gifted writer and screenwriter is her ability to pull us into the lives of her characters and wrap us up in their stories, so much so that we cannot peel our eyes away from the screen until the film finishes.
She says, “When I’m writing a story, I primarily follow the characters, their space inside the plot, their needs and goals, giving them priority above everything else. I think that the only way to have a story that feels true is to create characters so real that it’s like knowing someone intimately.”
Not only did Alice’s novel “Magnolia: Hearts on Fire Vol.1” earn quite a bit of buzz among Italian readers, but the way she transformed the story into the screenplay was so powerful that viewers couldn’t help but fall in love with her characters and their story.
Starring Amedeo Andreozzi (“Immaturi- La Serie,” “Che Dio ci Aiuti”), Rocco Fasano (“Tender Eyes”), and Sara Matteucci (“Love 14”), “Magnolia: Hearts on Fire Vol.1” tells the story of Elise, a young woman who tries to leave her past behind by moving to London, only to find that the very things that she is trying to escape may be her only chance at finding happiness.
Aside from leading Alice to earn industry acclaim with several awards given to her personally for her writing, “Magnolia: Hearts on Fire Vol.1” also took home the Best Short Awards from the Couch Film Festival, Etna Film Festival, Via dei Corti, Creation International Film Festival and Rolling Ideas, as well as the Best Original Score Award from the Creation International Film Festival. In addition to the numerous awards and nominations the film has already earned, the film’s lead actors, Rocco Fasano and Sara Matteucci, have been nominated for the Best Lead Actor and Best Lead Actress Awards at next year’s Mabig Film Festival for their performances in the film.
Lorenzo Costagliola, who worked as the cinematographer on both “Apeiron” and “Magnolia: Hearts on Fire Vol.1” says, “Alice brings to life stories that existed in her mind for a long time before we step on set to make them for real. She imagined those scenes thousands of times, and so what makes her strong is knowing exactly how an actor will behave, how he will react in a scene, how he will adjust his tone of voice… Everything is already put on the script and the lines become real, so the actors can truly relate faster with their characters.”
Alice has proven herself to be an unequivocally powerful storyteller whose vision transfers onto the big screen with astonishing ease. What’s even more surprising though is her ability to create stories across genres, with each one carrying a unique appeal that allows them to stand out from others in the market. From romance to sci-fi, Alice has a rare ability to create cinematic worlds that viewers can relate and immerse themselves within.
Early on in her career as a screenwriter Alice made a name for herself as the writer behind the 2014 dramatic fantasy film “Suspensum,” which was chosen as an Official Selection of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner, as well as the intense mystery film “Inside,” which was chosen as an Official Selection of the Direct Monthly Film Festival. With “Suspensum” bringing to the screen a multi-layered romance within the realm of a fantastical world, and “Inside” telling the story of a population plagued by the HB1 virus, which turns normal people into ruthless murderers, it’s easy to see that Alice is a diversely talented storyteller.
She admits, “I most love writing science fiction and dystopian stories, as I grew up reading Asimov and Dick, but I also love fantasy and romance and one of my biggest idols is JK Rowling.”
Up next for Alice and her husband Philip Morelli is the film “Memoria,” which is slated to begin shooting in Atlanta next year. Last year Alice wrote the screenplay for “Memoria,” which has already started to garner extensive funding and interest from top-notch actors and is well on its way to production. Taking place in the future, “Memoria” tells the story of a dystopian society whose people have practically lost their ability to connect and relate with one another — all thanks to a powerful technology that had originally promised to change the world for the better… Sound familiar?
“It’s a story that will become an experience for the audience by making them excited and getting them involved but also making them aware about the future,” explains Alice. “We think it’s important to show all of the shades of this technology so hypothetically the people that choose to use it have a complete idea about its potential but also its danger if they use it in the wrong way. The choices we make now, will determine how we will relate to each other in the future.”
Alice definitely has a way of tapping into current themes in society and bringing those into her stories, as well as infusing these stories with elements that very well may foreshadow the future society is headed towards — the latter being one of the marks of a truly gifted sci-fi writer. With Alice behind the story, “Memoria” is undoubtedly a film audiences will not want to miss.
