Mediterranean (Mango)

Alessandro Rak (Naples, December 22, 1977) is an Italian cartoonist, animator, and director.
His best-known work is the film The Art of Happiness (2013), of which he is the director and co-writer together with Nicola Barile, Paola Tortora, and producer Luciano Stella.
He lives and works in the Spanish Quarters of Naples; he studied at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome.
Together with Andrea Scoppetta, Alessandro Rak formed the animation studio Rak&Scop in 2001, creating a fruitful artistic partnership that in a few years produced not only animations but also comics, studies, demos and character designing for various production houses. He made the video Looking Death Window (10′) winner of the CYLECT International Price and the first prize at the 6th International Festival of Film Schools in Mexico City (1999), the video for Kanzone su Londra by 24 Grana (2001), the video for La paura dei Bisca (2004) and the short film Va’ for the Med Video Festival in Paestum (2005)[2]. Among his comics: Ark for Grifo editions (2004); Zero or One (2005) and Bye bye jazz (2006) for Lavieri editions, A Skeleton Story for GG Studio editions (2007).
In 2013 Alessandro Rak directed the animated film The Art of Happiness, starring Lucio Allocca, Leandro Amato, Silvia Baritzka, Francesca Romana Bergamo, Antonio Brachi and co-written and produced by Luciano Stella for BIG SUR in collaboration with Mad Entertainment, Rai Cinema and Cinecittà Luce. The film, previewed to the public at Lucca Comics & Games 2013, won the Premio Arca Cinema Giovane, Premio Fedic and Premio Best First Work at the Raindance Festival in London.
It also received the “Best Animated Film” award at the European Film Awards in 2014. In 2017 he shot the animated film Gatta Cenerentola in collaboration with Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri and Dario Sansone.