Revolver

Naples. In a pulsing techno club, a playground of desire, dominance and survival, bodies collide under the strobe lights. At the heart of it all Ronga, a trans go-go dancer, keeps moving and spinning inside an iron cage. On her high heels, she feeds the hunger of the crowd. Orbiting around her there are Daniel, a photographer drawn to her raw beauty, Manuel, a toxic and predatory obsession, and Medusa, the club’s enigmatic queen, ruling from the highest platform, two machine guns embedded in her bra, her Revolvers. Between drinks, beats, and games of power, Ronga fights for her dignity within the cruel hierarchy of her nocturnal world. At the end of that night, just like magic, roles shift. Ronga raises the “revolver” toward Medusa, her eyes widen, fear flashing across her face. In one final and defiant gesture, Ronga confronts a world that never stops watching, never stops controlling her. Then, dawn breaks and masks fall: it was just a play.

Paoli De Luca (1999) was born in Naples and grew up in the suburbs of Portici. After classical studies in their hometown, they graduated with honors from the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, where they developed the photonovel Fera (2018), presented at the Naples Film Festival. Meanwhile, they collaborated with magazines such as Vogue Italia, Harper’s Bazaar, Exibart and for the MACRO Museum of Rome with their illustration and photography works, both behind and in front of the camera. After three years from their first project Fera, they wrote and directed the short movie Echoes (2021), presented at the Cineteca of Bologna, during the Divergenti Transgender Film Festival. In a layered, embryonic imaginary of different media and narratives, transgender bodies and desires are the main elements that mark Paoli’s first works and poetic as an openly transgender and non-binary young film director. Since 2022, they’re studying Film Direction at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. Their short movie Star (2024) was premiered at the Cinema Troisi’s Corto Condorello in Rome and screened at other italian Film Festivals such as Corto Dorico, Aphrodite Shorts and Babbaluci FIlm Festival, where it won the first prize. With Marina ( 2025) they win the Venice Film Festival International Critics’Week.  Revolver (2026) is their last short film production.