Summaries

Synopsis

When her family's ice-cream parlour business is threatened after the machine breaks down, a ten-year-old girl risks jail time and her good girl reputation to rob a bank in order to save the business. Will Lucy's alter ego Lucyfer the gangster step in to save her family's livelihood? And which Lucy will prevail?Meet Lucia Pagano (10) known to everyone as Lucy. Happy-go-lucky, loveable and bursting with optimism, Lucy helps out in her family's ice-cream parlour, the Gelateria Felicitá, located in a busy pedestrian zone in the small German town. Lucy is the oldest in a family of four. She lives with her parents Pietro (35) and Nadine (35) and her little brother Dino (18 months). All four of them inhabit a cosy apartment located directly above the Gelateria Felicitá. With a growing family this seems very cramped, but it suits the family due to the short commute time and the Pagano's embody a loving and warm family relationship.The Pagano family are passionate about ice-cream and its magical and karmic ability to turn even the worst days into something happy. Using organic fruits and many old Sicilian family recipes, they serve up a multitude of innovative flavours to their customers, be it a mother and daughter returning from their team's lost football game, to the town's local friendly policemen. No matter the social status, no one is immune to the soul-uplifting power of delicious ice-cream from Gelateria Felicitá whose slogan reads "this ice-cream parlour sells happiness".In the film's opening scene, we meet the Pagano's. Lucy is helping her father Pietro serve ice-cream to customers. Just like the ice-cream flavours in Gelateria Felicitá, Lucy is dressed in a rainbow of vibrant colours, complete with a cocktail umbrella in her hair. Customers enter the scene and some of them are in bad moods, including a customer who booked the wrong cruise, a schoolchild who got an F for a dictation, and a customer who almost bought too much liver sausage at the butcher's because he misunderstood her.

From behind the counter, Lucy is sensitive, and observant of her clients and she makes personal suggestions - and customers leave happy and pleased by both their purchases and the friendly and helpful service. A framed newspaper article hanging in the Gelateria Felicitá kitchen includes a photo of the Pagano family, reflecting a proud and genuine family-run business who truly believe that "ice-cream makes you happy and the world a better place".We're introduced to another member of the Pagano family - Uncle Carlo (45). Carlo is described as a loveable trickster; he has an affinity for horseracing and a penchant for shadiness. One day Lucy, Pietro, Carlo and Dino are sitting inside the shop playing a game of their beloved Monopoly. When the waffle iron machine catches on fire, the family immediately spring into action, with the cool-headed Nadine putting out the fire with a customer's iced coffee. Carlo takes advantage of the situation to help himself to a few notes from the Monopoly bank. However, where her Uncle is shady, Lucy radiates sunshine and positivity. She tells short-changed customers to pay on a return visit, walks old ladies across the street, and thrives in her volunteer role as her school's crossing guard, a role she shares with her best friend Rima (10), who she has known since kindergarten.Outside the comforts of her family and work, Lucy's good girl role makes her the target of bullying in the Mother Theresa Elementary schoolyard, where school bully Tristan Nowak (11) routinely disrupts not only Lucy's class presentation, but her entire classroom with his loud music, mean attitude and argumentative behaviour. Luckily for Lucy, her best friend Rima is dedicated, shares a similar zest for life and comes equipped with a "no-bullshit" detector which will come in handy at a later stage.Despite his questionable financial credentials and gambling habits, Carlo is often rebuking his brother Pietro for the way he runs the ice-cream parlour including their use of expensive organic products and too-large scoop sizes. Prophetically, disaster strikes the Pagano family when the ice-cream machine breaks down and they must come up with EUR30 000 to replace the bespoke Pallino 3000 Sicilian machine. Their bank loan is rejected, which renders the family speechless. Without an ice-cream machine and no way to raise fast money, their business will start to melt away before their eyes. They have one-week of supplies left before everything they've ever worked for is gone. Lucy overhears her parents Pietro and Nadine discussing their gloomy situation and relays all of this to her understanding best friend Rima. Then, on a fateful day joining her UncleCarlo at the horse races exposes Lucy to a darker side of fast money - corruption, gambling and criminal gangsters. An idea begins to sprout inside Lucy - if she could restyle herself as a good-girl-turned-gangster, will she be able to raise the EUR30 000 and save the Pagano business?Lucy decides to approach Tristan, the school bully, hoping to pick up some insider tips on how to shed her good girl image. Tristan is about to fail class for the second consecutive year, so Lucy offers him tutoring in exchanging for some gangster "mentoring". Like acquiring any new skill, Lucy has an intense and time-pressured learning curve ahead of her. Over a series of days, Tristan walks Lucy through the finer details of becoming a gangster, from crossing the street over a red light, to scrounging money from passers-by, to stealing chocolate bars from the supermarket. Little by little Lucy's character is transforming to Lucyfer. An old lady is left helpless, and Rima is left baffled and shocked by her best friend's sudden transformation. However, with ice-cream stocks running critically low, Lucy is desperate to perfect her new gangster alter ego. What ensures, is a comedy of errors as Lucy tries desperately to shed her good girl ways and become her alter ego Lucyfer. Tristan and Lucy's plans are further stalled by the bank's security guard Sergei, who stalls their practice robbery attempt - throwing more curve balls into the mix. The desired outcome now seems unlikely and the likely outcome that Lucy will go to jail is becoming more realistic.LUCY GOES GANGSTA climaxes with the planned bank robbery but with a surprise comedic twist. As a well-rehearsed Lucyfer arrives to rob the bank, her attempts are shown-up by professional bank robbers "Bonnie" and "Clyde", who are equally surprised to find a 10-year-old girl hijacking their plan. The evolving scene is broadcast to all the town's residents when the local news crew shows up and begins a live transmission. The Pagano family, Rima, the town's friendly policeman and Tristan all show up and are aghast to see Lucy in the center of the action. Drama ensues and the audience left to decide if Lucy the heroine or Lucyfer the villain will prevail, and which Lucy will save the town's beloved ice-cream parlour.

LUCY GOES GANGSTA is a modern fairy tale about a 10-year-old heroine. The characters and situations are deliberately exaggerated. Our film's look will reflecta quality of hyperreality. An example of the hyperreal setting we envision may befound in the successful French children's film classic LE PETIT NICOLAS or inWes Anderson's MOONRISE KINGDOM.