A group of Italian "outsiders" is sent to shoot a film in Armenia, but a war breaks out after they arrive.
After being abandoned at a hotel in the forest by their producer - who vanished taking with him the money received by the EU to fund the film -, they find an unexpected opportunity for happiness.
Simone Spada choose the location of his debut feature after seeing some pictures taken by his mother during a holiday in Armenia.
Openly influenced by Academy Award-winning director Gabriele Salvtores (and in particular by his Mediterraneo, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1992), Hotel Gagarin is a comedy where the war is solely on the background. Rather, the movie is about happiness, according to its director:
"The movie talks about cinema, dreams and the possibility of a rebirth. It is almost a movie about human resilience through fantasy and imagination", Simone Spada told SBS Italian.
Simone Spada had worked as assistant director to some of the most important Italian filmmakers for 20 years before debuting as director with Hotel Gagarin (officially released in 2018).
Director Simone Spada attends a photocall for 'Hotel Gagarin' on May 22, 2018 in Rome, Italy. Source: Getty Images Europe
And he admits that he has been inspired by them and by other "maestri" of Italian cinema, in particular by the authors of the traditional Italian-style comedy. But he also says that, although inspiration is important, it should be somehow limited, in particular for a debut.
"I believe that when directors make their first movie, the main mistake that can be made is to try to put in the film everything they had always wanted to tell throughout the years in which they had no opportunity to make movies. There are expectations on one-selves. I tried not to do it".
