BEFORE SUNDAY Pilot Episode: "Chiedimelo"

Lodina, northern Italy, summer 1985. Tommaso, a 24-year-old bicycle mechanic, has bought a postcard from Livia's stationery shop every week for three years, written to her on every one, and never sent a single one. Today he finally plans to tell her how he feels, until she tells him she's leaving for Buenos Aires on Sunday. He freezes, rides to the river and dives in. When he surfaces, he finds the one word she secretly wrote on his postcard: "Chiedimelo" (Ask me). And she's standing on the bridge above, waiting for his answer.

I wanted a character whose whole story lives in the gap between what he feels and what he says, and a countdown that makes every episode matter.

Where the series goes next: every episode is one day closer to Sunday. Does "ask me" mean ask her to stay, or ask to go with her? Livia discovers the drawer of hundreds of unsent postcards. His widowed mother and his late father's workshop hold him in Lodina, while Livia's own doubts about leaving surface. The season ends on the train platform on Sunday morning, and beyond that the story can follow them across two countries, through the letters he finally starts sending.

#cantinachallenge