With Rumba, Pueblo, and Laika, Ascanio Celestini has created a triptych that gives voice to the most wounded sides of humanity—an intense, poetic trilogy about the outcasts of our time: forgotten souls, fragile lives, stories ignited in the non-places of urban outskirts. The parking lot of a supermarket becomes a universal stage where God, a sex worker, a homeless man, or an African porter embody a suffering and luminous humanity. Celestini makes this light shine through the shadows—with a voice that is deep, ironic, uncomfortable, and necessary.
RUMBA
The ox and the donkey from St. Francis’ nativity scene in a supermarket parking lot
A man who went against the tide, renouncing wealth and war to become a servant of the poor. A knight who rejected violence and, as a friar during the Crusades, traveled to the Holy Land preaching peace and brotherhood. But why are we still fascinated by Francis today? And where would we find him now?
The two characters in this story live in a suburban apartment block, sharing their everyday experiences—and in the lives of the neighborhood’s poor, they recognize the same faces and destinies of those the Saint met eight centuries ago. People unseen then, as now. Voiceover: Agata Celestini