In Italy the animation movie is available on streaming.
The production is by Andrea Warren and the film was directed by the Academy Awards nominee Enrico Casarosa who is Italian.
I have already watched the movie, Luca, on the platform and I can say that Luca is the title and the name of its main character too.
The movie tells the story of a young boy and his best friend who spend a summer in a town of the Liguria Riviera but their amazing summer is threatened by a secret, because the two are actually sea monsters who come from an underwater world.
I won’t tell you more not to write any spoiler material.
Luca was directed by an Italian director, screenwriter and animator, Mr. Casarosa, who was born in Genoa but who studied animation in New York.
He was nominated for an Academy Award twice for the best animated short film with The Moon, and nominated for an Annie Award for the best storyboarding in an animated film with Arlo's journey.
It seems that the director took inspiration from his childhood and from the unforgettable summers spent in the company of his best friend of the time to create Luca.
It is therefore no coincidence that the film is set in a seaside town on the Riviera.
This detail makes Luca an even more meaningful film because it bases its roots on true events and animation films rarely do that.
Portorosso is the name for the city where the film is set and that is fictional even though it seems an hybrid name coming from Portofino or Portovenere and Monterosso in famous Cinque Terre, the Ligurian five lands.
Fictional Portorosso shows in fact the best of each of the Cinque Terre villages.
The setting of the film is not in modern Cinque Terre though but it seems set in a Liguria of the fifties.
Cinque Terre inspired Luca
The main square of Portorosso looks a lot like that of Vernazza village but it also looks like Camogli for its harbor and its colorful buildings.
I personally also found some streets very similar to those in a town called Varigotti for its cobblestone alleyways and for its bay which reminded me of the Bay of Saracens near the abovementioned town.
Cinque Terre
But Luca is also about Ligurian pesto, Italian gelato and the typical Genoese focaccia.
Food in fact plays an important part in Luca as the protagonists challenge each other to see who eats the most pasta including the typical trofie and the lasagna with pesto.
The underestimated (only abroad) focaccia makes its debut in an animation film and fish appears everywhere in the film but no one eats it perhaps because the two protagonists also come from the sea and are sea creatures themselves.
The cave that Luca and Alberto visit exists for real and it is called Grotta dei Falsari.
In reality it is not in the Cinque Terre but near the town of Noli.
Starting from Varigotti indeed the Cave can be reached by hiking on the Sentiero del Pellegrino, a trail that offers breathtaking views of the Western Ligurian Riviera, near the Gallinara island.
The name, Pilgrim Trail is probably due to the fact that the route touches several ancient churches, now deconsecrated, but in the past they were a destination for pilgrimages.
Luca is a coming-of-age story and a story of a good and lasting friendship but, in Luca's plot, there are many Ligurian maritime legends, such as the one that narrates the birth of the town of Sestri Levante.
It’s a story which talks about Segesta, the most beautiful of the sirens and Tigullio who fell in love with her.
Beautiful Ligurian Sea
