Dedalo & Dharma
It’s a summer evening when, without even realizing it, Dharma comes out of the cinema screen to escape certain death and meet that very spectator, Dedalo, who comes to the Kazan Cinema every single day to see her. Dedalo is thirteen and has an unbridled passion for films and Dharma, who’s the same age, is a character who escaped a destiny which, like that of all the characters, always repeats itself in The Rindwalker, the most anticipated Hollywood film of the season.
What seems like the beginning of a surreal and romantic idyll is in fact only the premise of a bigger, daring story, full of dangers. Because Dharma is “only” a character and absolutely has to return to the film. To do so, both will have to abandon reality and dive into the cinemaverse: a parallel and complex universe where all cinematic stories are connected to each other.
A story by Book on a Tree
By the same author or illustrator
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