Clivense serie ENG
Once upon a time there was ChievoSport – Football
12 episodes 30 min
Logline
After Chievo Verona went bankrupt in 2021, Sergio Pellissier, former captain and yellow/blu bomber, spurred on and supported by an entire community, founded F.C. Clivense. Will the new president be able to bring back to the professional ranks the team from the small neighbourhood of Verona that enchanted the whole world with its play?
Synopsis
On August 21st 2021 the wonderful story of the Chievo miracle team officially ends. The team does not register for the next championship and the fairytale that lasted more than twenty years vanishes, leaving an unbridgeable void in the hearts of the fans. A pain difficult to accept, even for someone like Sergio Pellissier, 112 goals in A League, who battled for years wearing the yellow and blue colors of Chievo. Sergio can’t get over it, he was always the captain and the point of reference for everyone; he knows most of the fans personally, his children grew up with their children. The former captain then, knowing he can count on the support of four thousand souls, sitting on a bench in a suburban field, has a vision, to found a new team and start from scratch.
This series is about the dream of a man who never gave up. A man who saw disappointment and disillusionment in the eyes of his community and decided to rebuild the little fairytale that had enchanted the whole world. Between crowdfunding, the casting of players on Instagram and a road-map that aims to reach Serie B, among the top 40 Italian teams in 2027, the new adventure begins and it is called F.C. Clivense. Thus begins the dream of a stubborn man and it starts from the lowest step, the 3rd category. Today with two promotions in two years and the victory of an Italian Cup of Excellence the dream seems much more real, but the road to the top becomes more difficult with every step.
THEME
The main theme of the series is rebirth. A rebirth that starts from the vision of a man who firmly believes in the values of sport as an educational and social drive, and that takes shape on the grass of a suburban field to then embrace an entire community whose dream has been stolen. Like a new Rocky Balboa, Sergio Pellissier bets, with a spirit of sacrifice and self-denial, on himself and his boys amidst general disbelief. The president’s charisma makes F.C. Clivense a family of four thousand people who firmly believe in the same principle: healthy and fair football where it is the pitch and not the budget that makes the difference.
ACCESS AND UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS
After several meetings with president Sergio Pellissier, managers, coaches, technicians and players, the authors created a very close and deep relationship of trust and collaboration. The F.C. Clivense club has given total availability in giving full and exclusive access to all the characters and events that will characterize the upcoming season in order to tell this wonderful story of sport and rebirth in depth. Sergio Pellissier immediately took steps to put the authors in touch with professionals from the world of football, journalists and, above all, opened the doors of the small neighborhood of Chievo: a world sui generis, with a diverse and very passionate fan base, still strongly linked to the former captain. In addition, since the beginning of this adventure, an internal troupe of the club has documented all the steps of F.C. Clivense, from the tryouts in 2021 to form the first team, to the international crowdfunding campaign to finance the dream, to the victory of the championship of excellence that took the team into Serie D, thus creating hours and hours of entirely unpublished archive material available for the story.
Main Characters
Sergio Pellissier
Sergio Pellissier is a legend for Chievo fans, he is the man of the miracle, of A league, of the Champions League, the man for whom the fans cheered so many Sundays from the stands of the Bentegodi. Today Sergio is much more, he is the man who has restored hope, who has rekindled the dream.
Sergio is silent, almost taciturn, perhaps it is his mountain’s Valle d’Aosta origin or perhaps a listening disposition, when he speaks he never does so to annoy silence, but to express a precise idea of football, of the ethics necessary to lead a team. An idea of sport that does not pursue victory as the only goal, but which must necessarily become personal and moral growth.
Sergio Pellissier founded Clivense on this premises and those remain the aim of his challenge. In a world of football where budgets influence rankings and scandals define careers Sergio has a vision, to succeed in the top 40, but in his own way, showing others that another way is possible.
Stefano Bottani.
Bottani is the former right-hand man of Giovanni Sartori, deus ex machina of the Chievo of miracles and the current Atalanta. Stefano is a man who has scouted players from across Europe, including N’Golo Kantè, European champion with Chelsea and world champion with France. He recently received an offer from Manchester United, which he turned down because for him, working with Sergio is priceless. The Clivense first and foremost.
Riccardo Allegretti
Allegretti is the coach of the first team, a gruff man with a big heart, who mixes witty banter with resounding dicks to his boys, for whom he even cooks meals in the small Clivense club. The Mister, as everyone calls him, divided between piñatas of pasta with tomato sauce and fierce training sessions, is the strategist on the pitch and the motivator in the dressing room. A father figure for the many young outfield players who have decided to become part of the Clivense family.
Main Characters
The Team
The players are the driving force of the Clivense, many very young, often not yet of age, others veterans with a past in the major categories, but with too many springs behind them. This mixture of youthful exuberance and experience makes the Clivense world heterogeneous and dynamic, where there are those who learn to take their first steps in a world, the football one, that is extremely competitive, and those who teach, perhaps suggesting old locker room tricks learned when they were rookies. Just like a big family where Sergio Pellissier is father and teacher. Through their stories we can appreciate the joys and sorrows of the most beautiful and fiercest game in the world.
The fans
Chievo is a small neighborhood on the outskirts of Verona, it has a central square where the boys meet to play football, a bar where they argue over trumps and politics, and the church for mass on Sundays. The people of Chievo, the Clivenses, are quiet people who love good food and company, but above all they love their team Chievo Verona, which has given them great satisfaction over the years, but which no longer exists. With the birth of the Clivense the people of Chievo have rediscovered the fervor of the past and immediately answered the call of the former captain. People like Isabella, founder of the Chievo Club now known as Club Clivense, who follows her team every Sunday both home and away and who likes to repeat: “Here no one sets the alarm clock at 6.30 or 7.30. The alarm clock here has always been at 6.31, 7.31, 8.31, because the number 31, Pellissier’s number, means everything to us!”, but also young university student Matteo, who returns home from Milan where he studies every time the Clivense have a match, or Rosanna, who smilingly admits that she knows nothing about football but always goes to see the team, elbowing her husband so that he can explain some moments of the game that escapes her. These and many others are the Clivense supporters, each with their own story behind them, each who has invested in the Clivense dream with money, even a little, but a lot and a lot of passion.
The author
I was born in Rome in 1984 and in 2009 I obtained the AVID editor certification at the Cinema School of Rome. After years as an entertainment and factual editor I moved on to directing and writing documentaries, docu-series and TV commercials. Over the years I specialized in documentary series of various genres: from art to social, from sport to the world of makeup. In 2020, I created an educational series on the TIM VISION platform, which I also directed. ( Clio back home – Discovery Channel, M.U.R.O and Street art festival for Sky Arte, Backstage special on the film Io, Leonardo, for Sky Cinema.)
NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
Clivense, once upon a time there was Chievo, recounts the entire upcoming football season of F.C. Clivense, who will fight for promotion and a place in the history of Italian football by interweaving three narrative levels. The main line revolves around Sergio Pellissier, the managers and the team. The president will have to work hard with collaborators and athletes to find the most effective financing and strategies in order to fulfil the milestones of the road-map established during the foundation of the club and promised to the fans.
The main line is intertwined and strengthened in the story of the Chievo community. The Clivense fans are not just simple fans who crowd the stands on Sundays, they are also the club’s financial backers, people to whom they are accountable, for better or worse, regarding the progress of the season and the choices of the management.
The third narrative level is based on the archive and helps put Clivense’s history into perspective. In the crucial moments of the season, through archive material from TV and newspapers, but also produced internally by the white and blue club, a parallelism with the Chievo of the miracles will be highlighted, through the stories of former players and insiders, telling of the bond with the fans of the time who now support the Clivense, of the emptiness and disappointment at the failure of Chievo Verona, of the mismanagement of a club ousted for financial problems and not sporting demerits.
In a sort of Ted Lasso documentary version, the series will follow the main characters, Sergio Pellissier above all, step by step, highlighting the emotions and conflicts they will have to face to reach the end of the season and allow Clivense to take another step towards the top.
SCENE SETTING
The series has a strongly character-driven soul. The total access to the characters, to the club’s control room, to the dressing rooms, to the training sessions, in two words, the intimate and complete access to the entire management of the club will lead the spectator to live the Clivense adventure intensely. The hand-held camera attached to the characters will follow the crucial and unrepeatable moments as they happen and will be alternated with posed and stylistically edited interviews where the protagonists, both managers and fans, will take stock of the situation as the adventure progresses, recounting difficulties and successes, hopes and disappointments. The matches will have a very cinematographic flavor, slow camera movements and slow motion will aim to tell only the decisive moments of the matches, decisive, not only from a sporting point of view, but and above all, for the emotional influence on the characters. The repertoire with its harsh realism on the one hand and the beautiful Verona, the city of love by definition, on the other, will be the punctuation that will make the tale complete, exciting and visually elegant.
As in the famous series “Sunderland ‘til I die”, Clivense, once upon a time there was Chievo is not just the story of a football club, but is the story of an entire community that sees in its team a source of inspiration, a push to face difficulties, a reason to feel united.
