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This TV series pays tribute to the little guys who do the nitty-gritty jobs, including in the future. In science fiction films, far from seeing space heroes, we usually see little faces behind little windows in space stations. These are the professionals who go about their tasks with robot precision. In fact they're often mistaken for robots (this happens all the time in sci-fi movies...) I imagine these professionals being replaced, in accordance with NASA and ESA regulations, by two inept slackers from Rome, OTELLO and MARIO Stuck on the lowest level of the furthest international space station orbiting the earth, in an infinitesimal cockpit somewhere between a phone booth and a TV director's cubbyhole, they languish in front of their monitors, bored and frustrated. Their job is to direct traffic of spaceships to and from this spatial condominium, and the fact that they are dealing with astronauts from all over the world, speaking numerous languages, and that they can't even string together two words of English, leads to all kinds of misunderstandings in this ten-episode series. So this Laurel and Hardy duo is dealing with all kinds of human specimens ranging from an American commander reminiscent of Big Jim, to a Russian female scientist who looks like Barbie. They monitor, or rather spy on, everybody at the station who are performing experiments, doing maintenance and spacewalking. They carry on a steady stream of banter, making fun of and criticizing everybody, while their own lack of discipline and expertise makes for continual mishaps.

For ten days, Earth has been without contact with the Centaurus, a spacecraft orbiting Mars with a crew of four. Newscaster Jane O'nion announces that re-contact should be established soon. First, the news report reviews the way Mars' surface will be penetrated, profiles the four crew members, and interviews the NASA flight manager. Jane's questions cast things in dire ways, a style she continues when contact is reestablished. Jane interrupts the excited report of the flight commander regarding their recent discoveries, to ask how everyone feels. Then, when a problem arises, Jane's intrusions threaten the flight's safety. Is there any justice?

SECOND CHANCE is a videogame that promises love. But you have to pay in order to play, and Tim's HAPPINESS CREDIT CARD has run out. So, just like real life, when you're down and out, even the doorman can become your worst enemy. An obtuse keeper of the gate can threaten your very existence simply by insisting on a password, and the game becomes a nightmare, a veritable duel of wits in a series of relentless attempts to bypass the password. Tim is searching for love in a virtual environment, but he's going to find it in real life. SECOND CHANCE is a satire on SECOND LIFE. Everyone has the right to a SECOND CHANCE, but it won't happen in a synthetic life where promises are exasperated by a consumer society. Everyone needs love. The question is how much we're willing to risk in order to get it. SECOND CHANCE: because life is not a game. SECOND CHANCE was made in collaboration with the third-year students in the Digital and Virtual Design course at the European Institute of Design in Rome. This film was made for and by these students who decided to throw their talent into expressing themselves through computers -- students who are facing a world in which there is no certainty they will find work. Through this story I would like to give them a perspective that will help them be less precarious, at least in their sentimental lives.

Italy celebrates its first 150 years, but the party has been over for a long time. A glance at reality far from the usual self-celebratory rhetoric, far from planet Earth, in fact. It seems like science fiction, but it's not. It's our present as we look into the future.

American Commander Spark and Russian scientist Dr. Svetlana Tchenko show to Chinese Ambassador the International Space Station.

A shuttle requests permission to attach to the Space Station. Otello turns himself into a parking attendant.

For Otello even doing a crossword puzzle leads to disaster.

Svetlana Tchenko's scientific expertise is put to the extreme test by Otello's theories.

Otello and Mario type the word M.A.G.N.A.R.E. (C.H.O.W.) on the food dispenser Cook 9000, and the computer seems to be making fun of them.

Otello teaches the computer that revenge is a plate best served cold.

To ingratiate himself with the Russian scientist, Otello captures an alien for her.

Space flatulence compromises the space station's orbit.

Otello investigates a series of suspicious technical accidents aboard and repairs Svetlana's hot water heater in the hope of ingratiating himself, when a new threat endangers the space station.

Commander Spark orders Otello to retrieve a soccer ball his son has lost in space.