On the occasion of the series of UltraPop panel proposed by Talk room of Arf! Festival in its ninth edition (12 to 14 May 2023), the public of the comic fair, home to the former Testaccio slaughterhousehad the opportunity to meet part of the cast of Sea Outthe Rai series directed by Ivan Silvestrini which turned out to be a real mass phenomenon.

Guests of the Festival were the same Ivan Silvestrinidirector of the series from the middle of the second season onwards, Raizthe singer of the Almamegretta who in addition to interpreting the boss Salvatore Ricci is also the author of the original songs of the series, e James Georgeinterpreter of Ciro Ricci, a character beloved by the public who dies at the end of the first season, but who reappears in the second and in the third in various flashbacks, especially related to Rosa Ricci (Maria Esposito), his sister who features from third season on.

The “Mare Out” Phenomenon

Director Ivan Silvestrini he could certainly have had no idea of ​​the phenomenon that the series would become, when he took over the direction of some of the episodes of the second season: “I picked up the series in the middle of the second season, I have continued throughout the third and now I’m grappling with the fourth. I immediately perceived the great interest around the project, but while I was shooting the third season I saw that the set was surrounded every day by dozens and dozens of guys who wanted to meet their favorites. We storytellers are always faced with a big dilemma when we ask ourselves whether we will be able to captivate an audience with our stories. But as we walked around the third season, I not only perceived that the public was there and that our responsibility was to give everyone stories that lived up to their expectations, but I also had the impression, as a privileged spectator that I am, that these guys were really doing something extraordinary . I knew Mare Fuori would be loved, but I couldn’t expect how much.”

All the characters in the series have a very distinctive look. Ciro, for example, always looks forward, almost reaching out to the future, and always wears black or white garments, with gold decorations, as if they were a kind of uniform. Where does this look come from, this distinctive approach to the character?

James George: “Everything about the character is a team effort. Especially the Ricci family, the villains of the series, are very characterized both for the look and for the interpretations. When I started playing Ciro, I chose not to portray the classic villain with a snooty attitude, as it seems more logical to do. I imagined him leaning forward, like a panther, and I stole this characteristic of his gaze from a boy I met at the IPM in Nisida, who was to all intents and purposes the Ciro of that place. As far as the look is concerned, the work fell to the costume department: it had been decided to always differentiate Ciro from the others, and so, while the other inmate boys wore colorful clothing, he was always dressed in black or white, because he had to stand out.”

The superhero costumes of the Mare Fuori characters

And this aspect of the costumes is found in many of the characters in the series, for example the Commander Massimo Esposito (interpreted by Carmine Recano) who always wears shades of blue or light blue. “There is actually a color study on the characters – intervenes Silvestrini – it is true that the Commander changes very little the palette of his clothes, and like him also the character of the Director (Caroline Crescentini) always has clothes in marine shades, given the symbolic value that the sea has in this series. While characters of other types use more aggressive or neutral colors. The character of Beppe Romano (Vincent Ferrara) then use a palette between brown and green, Linen (Antonio De Matteo) use a grayscale palette, and so on. None of them have ever left their palette, and no doubt my past working with cartoons, but also with Lorenzo Ceccotti on film Monolithhas helped me so much to achieve this degree of attention to detail.”

The characters of Sea Out therefore, under this point of view, they take on an iconic dimension, like comic book characters, like a Dylan Dog who never changes the dress he wears. And Silvestrini draws on the comic book epic when he approaches the direction of the series, on those visceral stories and on those characters who become icons, in particular with the staging of the Ricci family. “It is no coincidence that these have become the most iconic characters of Mare Fuori, starting from the father, Salvatore, passing through the son, Ciro, up to Rosa, the daughter, the new icon of Mare Fuori. It is undeniable that she immediately imposed herself, the moment she arrived.”

To interpret Salvatore Ricci, head of the family and “entrepreneur of crime”, there is Raizwhich explains how the presence of the character hovers above the children and above the whole story despite being a secondary presence: “Salvatore is always present in the bad education he gave to his children. He has raised criminals, with his son aiming to be like him, and Rosa who instead feels she has to be, even if maybe she doesn’t want to.” A presence that hovers over history and determines it, even if not directly. And this element will also be decisive for the fourth season, judging by the cliffhanger with which the third cycle of episodes ended.

The fourth season of Sea Out will be broadcast starting from February 2024 on RaiDue and will see all the protagonists of the previous seasons return, Maria Esposito, Matteo Paolillo, Massimiliano Caiazzo, Carmine Recano, Nicolas Maupas, Artem and all other interpreters.